


bring back one last time

by brookethenerd



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst with a Happy Ending, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24842782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brookethenerd/pseuds/brookethenerd
Summary: Steve goes back to 1983 to end the war with the Mind Flayer before it begins, leaving you behind. Only, this time around, the plot and players have changed, and Steve is forced to find new and old allies.
Relationships: Steve Harrington/Reader
Comments: 5
Kudos: 52





	1. part 1

**Author's Note:**

> another time travel au???? of course!! but we’re changing things up a bit this time, and sending steve back to Suffer!!! thank you endlessly to @mybestfriendthedingus for talking through this AU with me, and thank you to the @comedy-witch and the other catsluts (trying not to clog this up w the tags but i love u all so fucking dearly) for helping me come up with this. thank u thank u.

**1989**

Steve is 85% sure this isn’t going to work, and the 15% of certainty only comes out of respect for all the times a hesitant and disbelieving Steve Harrington of the past found himself blown entirely out of the water; the 15% is a courtesy.

If he’s honest - and he’s only doing so with himself - he’s shit scared and more than half expecting to hop right into the machine only to be obliterated or incinerated or any of the other possible outcomes the others warned about.

The risks don’t matter, though, because Steve already signed his death warrant. He signed it the moment the machine and its capabilities came into play, and a volunteer was needed. He’s known this might really be a one way trip - more so than it already is - since the moment he raised his hand.

“One minute and counting,” Max calls from where she’s tucked behind one of the many control panels in the warehouse. She ducks from beneath it, red strands flying out of her messy braids, and gives Joyce a thumbs up at the other console.

Dustin, Scott Clarke, and Dr. Owens stand behind the main console, their brows furrowed in concentration as they type in equations and code, all of which Steve doesn’t understand and doesn’t pretend to.

The science isn’t his concern; he’s not the pilot, nor the engineer, but the passenger; the sleeper agent, in a sense.

“Ass in the chair, Harrington,” Dustin calls. Steve rolls his shoulders, shrugging off whatever nerves are loose enough to discard, and tugs his jacket around his shoulders; he has no clue whether he’ll end up with it, but the fabric around him is a comfort. He heads across the stone warehouse floor to the machine, lovingly dubbed the Death Star by Steve himself due to its appearance.

In Steve’s defense, the title isn’t all that inaccurate. The machine is massive, like two halves of the Death Star cut in two, an old airplane chair sat between them. If the machine works, when it’s turned on, and El adds her juice to the mix, it should fire up and shoot him - his consciousness -back six years.

Back to the beginning of the end.

He climbs the small set of steps leading to the platform with the chair and hops into it, settling back against it and lifting his head, looking around at the people in the room. They’ve all said what might be goodbyes - if this works - but he can’t help taking one last look at the strangers and acquaintances who became his family.

This machine - this mission - has been in the making for three years, now, since Dustin, Dr. Owens, and Mr. Clarke got talking science and solutions and came up with the brilliant, though possibly impossible, plan to manipulate the fabric of time. Once El’s powers came into the mix, once all the tests appeared to work, they came to Steve.

He was the first they asked; he knows why, and he doesn’t blame them. He was there day one, and he’s got the least baggage waiting in 1989; he is leaving the least behind.

Dustin, Max, Lucas, Will, Eleven, and Mike. They’re not the little kids he met all those years ago, now nearing adulthood themselves. These past few years, especially, have hardened them, and they no longer resemble teenagers, but soldiers, down to the way they hold themselves and the distrust set in all of their eyes.

Scott Clarke. Dr. Owens. Joyce Byers. The kids. Nancy, Jonathan, and Robin. The wackiest of team-ups, and somehow, likely the only chance Hawkins - and maybe the world - has. Somehow, the fate of the world rests in the hands of Steve Harrington.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” Steve says, and Eleven stifles a sob. Beside her, Mike touches her arm, but rather than comforting her, he backs up; she has a job to do, too.

“Let’s hope not,” Dr. Owens says, “or we’ve failed.”

“Still can’t take a joke, I see,” Steve quips.

“Not even after three years,” Dustin calls, ducking his head to punch into the console; Steve doesn’t miss the quick hand he swipes beneath his eyes to wipe at unfallen tears.

The machine buzzes to life, and tension slices through the room. Eleven walks to the steps, stopping on the first metal stair and closing her eyes.

“Ready, El?” Scott Clarke calls from behind the console.

“Ready,” El says. Scott, Dr. Owens, Dustin, and the others on consoles press their allocated buttons and turn their assigned knobs, and the machine’s hum grows louder.

Steve glances at El, who’s nose has begun to bleed. He looks at Dustin, at Max, at the kids, at Robin, at all of them. Next he sees them, they’ll be six years younger. The kids he’s watched become young adults will be fourteen again. Robin won’t know him. The friendship he’s formed with Nancy and Jonathan will be gone.

But, if he does this right, they’ll live to see new days and new relationships, and there will be more people, more of the ones he’s lost, more of the stories tucked away prematurely.

That makes the risk worth it. That makes his loss worth it. One for the whole of Hawkins isn’t all that much of a sacrifice, is it? After what they’ve already lost?

Steve reaches down, brushing a finger across the watch on his wrist for good luck. He closes his eyes as the machine brightens around him, and he feels a tug on his consciousness, like exhaustion but more cumbersome, and he lets it pull him down, down, and back.

He lets go of 1989, and he starts again.

**1983**

It’s been six years since Steve was a junior in high school, and while he can pull off the bigger parts of the facade with ease, the little pieces are long gone, too far away to be retrieved. His locker combination, the student ID number he used to buy lunch, and his seats in every class have vanished from memory, and he finds himself scrambling to keep up.

He’s already treading water when he walks into his fifth-period class and realizes, with a start, that he recognizes two of the faces.

It’s like watching a TV show a second time. Steve can see all the things he missed the first time around.

Something he missed - a big fucking thing - is that he shared his junior English class - Miss Click - with not only Robin but also you.

You’re a junior again, all of the edges erased from your expression; Steve hasn’t seen you young like this - free like this - in so long it takes his breath away, and he nearly collides with someone coming in the door.

_Get it together, Harrington_ , he scolds himself and grips the strap of his backpack, crossing the room and flicking a glance at Robin - she sends him a guarded look before looking away - before settling into the closest open seat to you.

He has his plans, and they don’t involve you, but he can’t help getting close. Like working magnets, Joyce Byers used to joke - or, _will_ , or _never_ will, depending on how he looks at it - about the two of you; as if tethered by invisible strings, when one moved, the other did.

Once, when they were sad drunk on shitty wine, Robin told Steve she’d never seen anyone look at each other the way you and he did; her exact words were ‘beyond soulmate level shit,’ but her tone was genuine, and her words only solidified what Steve already knew; you were it.

He’s never believed in soulmates, but if he does have one, if they are real, he’d bet it all on you.

He sets his bag on the floor and leans into the desk, gaze drawn to you at the desk one row up and over. You’re busy digging through your bag, pulling out a notebook and pencils, and don’t take notice of his stares, allowing him precious moments to see you as you used to be; like looking at a live scrapbook page of photos and memories.

He’s so busy staring he doesn’t notice the student lingering awkwardly beside his desk for a few moments. He flinches, a hand flying to his chest, head snapping toward the boy standing a foot away from the desk, shifting his weight with discomfort.

Steve’s brows furrow, and it takes a moment for the realization to dawn on him: this isn’t his seat.

It takes him another second to figure out why the kid doesn’t just say something - just ask Steve if he’ll move, because Steve is so clearly in the wrong - but when he does, he feels the blood drain from his face.

There is an aspect to all this he hasn’t considered, perhaps one he didn’t let himself consider: who he was six years ago.

Steve has spent six years peeling the boy he used to be off, and now, with a snap of a finger, he’s that person again. He’s King Steve again, and just thinking the words makes him taste ash. Shame coils tight in his gut, and he pushes out of the chair and to his feet, the legs scraping against the floor and whining in his effort to move quickly, drawing the attention of everyone in the class.

Something else he forgot: the attention. The constant eyes on him. Once upon a time, he was comfortable beneath it - he believed himself to be, at least - but now, he feels like a butterfly beneath a pin. Every motion is seen and memorized and will inevitably be thrown around and manipulated within the hour.

He used to like that. Now, it makes his skin crawl.

“Shit, did I take your seat?” He asks the kid, whose name he doesn’t know and likely should. The boy stiffens, his cheeks pink.

“It’s no big deal,” he says. “You can take it.”

Steve’s brows furrow, and he steps back, giving his head a quick shake.

“No. Seriously, it’s my bad,” he says. “I’m out of it today. It’s your seat, man.” He gestures to the chair, and the boy moves, albeit reluctantly as if expecting Steve to yank the chair out from under him. The boy lets out a little sigh when he drops down, and the stone in Steve’s belly sinks deeper.

All eyes are on him - yours, Robin’s - as he walks to the back of the room and drops into an empty chair, though they fall the moment he lifts his chin to look back.

The ringing of the bell and entrance of the teacher grab most of the attention, giving Steve a moment to breathe, but he doesn’t miss the way your head stays turned a moment longer than the others; the way your brows furrow, and you whisper to the student beside you, “ _Who was that and what the hell have they done to Steve Harrington?_ ”

* * *

Steve’s capacity for dealing with Tommy H’s bullshit has decreased dramatically in his six-year absence, but unfortunately, the Steve of 1983 was still in the thick of it. And as much as he hates to admit it, he needs Tommy, at least for now.

Well, he needs the party. He needs Tommy and Carol and Barb and Nancy to come to his house; he needs bait. It sounds shitty when he thinks of it like that, but luckily, the only person who has to come to terms with that is him, and he’s not struggling with it all that much. If it works, it won’t matter how it happened.

So, he does what he has to, and he lays the trap for the Demogorgon, setting up all the pieces he can.

* * *

Steve wishes he had his bat. By 1989, the original bat was traded in for an upgraded model - a metal bat with metal spikes driven through the end - but he’d take the wooden nailed one over nothing.

He’s forced to head to his garage in search of something else to use, and finds a rusting pickaxe with his dad’s tools. Sharp and heavy enough to work, and once again, he’ll take it over nothing.

When Tommy and Carol arrive, he tucks it behind a bush out near the pool, and does his best not to throttle Tommy for saying stupid shit as he waits for Barb and Nancy.

By the time the doorbell rings, his heartbeat is hammering in his ears, and his palms are sweaty.

In 1983, he was falling head over heels for Nancy Wheeler. He knew that going into this. Still, it doesn’t feel any less like a betrayal to play along. He sees your face and hears your voice each time she takes his hand or leans in for a kiss, and avoids as much as he can.

He’s grateful when Tommy drags Carol out to the pool, Barb and Nancy following, and he joins them out in the cold night, forcing himself to keep his eyes off the dark trees behind the yard. He sneaks glances at the bush hiding the pickaxe and counts down in his head, each minute winding him tighter and tighter.

He avoids drinking until they get outside, trying to keep a clear head, but the winding down of the clock has him teetering on the edge of losing his shit, and he figures, he shotgunned once, he might as well do it again.

And, secretly, he’s missed being a dumb teenager. The time he comes from is a war zone, a battleground for the Upside Down. Here, right now, for a full sixty seconds, he can be a dumb kid drinking crappy beer.

He pops a hole in the can and flicks the top, bringing it to his mouth and gulping down the warm beer, tossing the empty can aside when he’s finished and swiping a hand across his mouth. He drops down onto the chair and pulls the cigarette from behind his ear, eager for the calming wave that comes with it. 

On the lawn chair beside him, Nancy leans forward with a smile on her lips, cocking a brow.

“Is that supposed to impress me?” Nancy asks. Steve’s stomach turns, and he flicks her a glance before popping the cigarette into his mouth and shrugging, pulling out a lighter and flicking the flame over the end.

“You’re a cliche, you do realize that?” She says. Steve keeps his gaze on the pool, taking a drag from the cigarette and pulling it away, letting out the smoke as he speaks. The words aren’t chosen, but spring from memory, as if on auto-pilot.

“You are a cliche,” he says. He stops, though he knows he said more last time, and leaves it there.

He can see Barb rolling her eyes in his peripheral vision, and thinks again of the pickaxe behind the bush; if he has anything to say about it, Barb will have time for infinite eye rolls after tonight.

It’s Tommy that brings Nancy a can to shotgun, not Steve, and he sits watching, wishing he were elsewhere - with someone else.

He chose this, he knows that. Still, he misses things. He misses you. You, who don’t know him as anything more than an asshole. You, who don’t remember him. You, who aren’t the mission.

And him, who is still madly in love with you, and thinks he might always be.

Nancy chugs her drink and encourages - pressures - Barb to do the same. It’s only when she cuts her finger on the can - again - that Steve understands how and why Barbara Holland died in the first place.

Not only did he let her die - merely a hundred feet away in his bedroom - but he killed her, too. That first time, he pressured her to drink, pressured her to chug, and after she cut her hand, he and the others left her alone.

Barb was always bait, but the first time, there was no one standing back to save her before the monster arrived. The realization tears Steve’s heart in two, only steeling his resolve further.

Barbara isn’t dying tonight. Even if he can’t kill the Demogorgon, he can do this. 

* * *

Steve hasn’t been nervous about having a girl in his bedroom for a long time, and it’s for entirely the wrong reason.

He knows what Nancy wants, what she expects, and somehow, knowing that they’ve done it before only makes it worse. You weren’t around then, and he was with Nancy, but that was the Steve before. This Steve is different.

He tugs a change of clothes out of his dresser for Nancy and hands them to her, giving her a tiny smile in response to her inquisitive one.

The clock ticks down in his head; he needs to move.

“Thank you,” Nancy says. Steve nods, and steps back, tugging his own towel off his neck and turning to the side. Nancy, after a beat, begins to tug on her shirt, making Steve’s stomach drop.

“Woah, woah, _woah_ -” He turns all the way around, facing the wall, and hears Nancy suck in a breath.

“But…I thought you-”

Steve brings his hands to his eyes, closing them and turning to face her. Again, he’s seen it before, but seeing it now feels wrong. He grew up in a house of betrayal, cheating, and lies, and he won’t get near that line, even if there are time and space technicalities involved. He’d never do to you - or anyone - what his parents did to each other.

“I, uh, I need to go do something really fast, but-” He moves to the door, stopping. He’s royally fucking this up, but he doesn’t care enough to fix it right now; Barbara’s life is more important than Nancy’s confusion. “There’s snacks in the pantry.”

He hears Nancy’s exasperated, “ _What_?” but is already moving down the hall and toward the stairs, concentration on Barbara and Barbara alone.

He will not fail this time; he will not fail _Barb_ this time.

* * *

The only thing that preventing Steve from running to a closet and curling up inside it is his history with monsters. If this were his first rodeo, he’d be pissing himself. Luckily, 1989 Steve Harrington has more than a few monster kills notched on his belt.

Not with a pickaxe, but he’s not going to complain.

It’s almost a relief to fall back into soldier mode, like a comfortable and familiar coat. He tugs the screen door open silently, gaze latched on Barbara sitting on the diving board, and he moves without a sound to the bush he hid his weapon behind, dropping to a crouch and grasping the handle. His tension eases just with the weapon in his hand, and he lets out a breath, eyes on Barbara. She lifts her thumb to inspect, and the lights in and surrounding the pool flicker.

Steve’s heart leaps, but the cool calm he always feels before a battle - the one that clears his senses and organizes his scattered thoughts - keeps him steady. He rises to his feet, slow and silent.

The moment the shadow shifts in the darkness, he lunges, throwing himself across the stone and toward Barb. He yells her name, and when she turns, he reaches for her hand and grabs her by the wrist, tugging her back. She scrambles back and off the diving board, confused and dazed, but Steve doesn’t take the time to explain.

“Run!” He screams, gripping the pickaxe tight in his hand. “Barbara, run!”

He doesn’t have to say it a third time, Barbara’s gaze flicking to something behind Steve, her eyes widening and her shoulders sinking. Her fear is palpable, and Steve doesn’t need to see to know what is breathing down his neck.

Barbara runs, and Steve turns, bringing up the pickaxe and driving it toward the Demogorgon chest. The creature jerks, but Steve manages to catch its shoulder, and in its effort to wrench away, it rips its own arm off, howling with rage and pain.

He yanks the ax back, stumbling with the effort, and slips on a puddle of water, falling back onto his back, ax clattering to the side. Fear loops around his neck as the Demogorgon, enraged and wounded, thrusts a taloned hand into his shoulder and drives it into the ground. He feels the skin split beneath the claws, but he doesn’t register the pain, not yet, not with a monster dripping bile onto his face.

Your face flickers in his mind, and his thoughts clear; he isn’t dying here.

He stretches his fingers, scrabbling across the wet stone for the handle of the ax, and a sharp tooth has just nicked his cheek when he catches hold of it and brings it up, driving it into the creature’s chest. It howls, lunging back, and Steve takes the only advantage he’s likely to get, forcing his exhausted limbs to function and climbing to his feet, chasing after it.

The Demogorgon swipes out with its claws once more, catching the same shoulder it wrenched on, and the skin slices open again, fire igniting beneath it. Steve swallows a scream and swings the pickaxe, catching the Demogorgon at the bottom of its head.

It rears back, disoriented. Steve’s image blurs, heartbeat pounding in his ears and thoughts growing foggier by the moment. The pain in his arm blazes on, making it harder to think and keep track of the monster.

The Demogorgon heaves as it rights itself, seeming to consider Steve for a moment, a chilling humanlike quality to it, before the lights flicker again, and the monster is gone with a single blink.

The adrenaline rushes out of Steve, the pain taking center stage, and he’s moving before he’s even decided where he’s going. He doesn’t ever decide, really; he just walks.

He limps out of his backyard, and down his street, and down another street, seeming to blink in and out of consciousness, the pain humming in his skull and radiating down his arm. He comes to at the base of your driveway

He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be here. He repeats the mantra the whole way up your driveway and to your door. It doesn’t stop him. The pain doesn’t stop him. Nothing stops him.

And when the door opens, and you appear in the doorway, and your brows furrow into a confused - and then, once you’ve seen the blood, concerned - expression, Steve leans heavily into your doorway.

“Steve?” You ask, shock evident in your words. “What the hell happened to you? What are you doing here?”

His lips part, ash and dust on his tongue, and he says, “I had nowhere else to go.”


	2. part 2

**1983**

The morphine dripping through the IV connected to Steve’s arm coats him like a warm blanket, softening the edges of the hot aching in his left arm as he blinks awake. The popcorn ceiling above him is stark white, and the smell of antiseptic singes his nose hairs.

He recognizes it as a hospital room immediately, and the small TV hanging in one corner tells him he’s still in the same time he lost consciousness in, but his memories are scattered too far apart to hold onto. Two versions of events shuffle in his head, pushing each other until the dominant - the most recent - slides into place.

The party. Barbara Holland. The Demogorgon. The pain in his arm, the slicing of claws, and after, an unsteady trek across town; a trek that Steve was not supposed to take.

Regret flares hot in his chest as he pushes to a sitting position, his movements catching the attention of the figure in the chair beside his bed. He didn’t notice until now, until they - until _you_ \- lean forward and say, “Hey, hey, hold on.”

His gaze snaps to yours, and he feels the weight of all you've forgotten in that single glance; in the distrust and hesitation in your eyes. He looks at you, and he sees the world, but you look at him and see nothing more than a high school bully.

Once upon a time, that’s all he was. As far as you know, that’s all he is.

“What’s going on?” He asks, struggling to piece together how he got from your porch to this bed, the holes in his memory impossible to fill. “Why am I in a hospital?”

“Why are you…” You shake your head, eyes wide. “You don’t remember? You showed up at my door and passed out on my porch. I basically _dragged_ you to the car and brought you here.”

Steve pushes further up, ignoring the protest in the left side of his body, dropping his eyes to the sling his arm is tucked into and the bandages wrapped tightly up and down his arm.

“The doctors say you’re really lucky. Whatever animal attacked you, it could have killed you, but it didn’t. They stitched you up and gave you some drugs. You should be up and running again in a day or two.” There’s a hint of distaste in your words that Steve can’t help but hone in on.

He didn't realize how hard this would be, to be near you, to know you, and pretend not to. He knows everything about you; he knows your reactions and what each twist of your expression means and what each sigh can be interpreted as. Here, he has to pretend not to know.

He doesn’t know what to do with all the emotions he has for you; he doesn’t know where to set them down, if he even can, if he even wants to.

“Thank you,” he says, lifting his gaze to yours, voice as gentle as he can make it, “for saving my ass.”

Your brows twitch, and you tear your eyes away, shrugging dismissively.

“You would have been fine, anyway. Like I said, whatever attacked you wasn’t trying to kill.”

Not quite true, Steve thinks. It was absolutely trying to kill him, and the only thing he had going for him was that his intentions were the same. It was a deathmatch, and it ended in a draw; Steve isn't naive enough to believe there won't be a rematch.

“Still,” he says. “Thank you.”

"It's not like I could just leave you on my porch," you say. Steve has to fight to keep his smile off his face.

Sitting here, being with you again, even if it’s not the you he saw last, is intoxicating. He’s already buzzing from the morphine, and your presence only twists him tighter.

“Just take the damn compliment, will you?” He asks, tone light, lips quirking up. Your brows furrow, and for a long moment, you just look at him.

“What did you mean before?” You ask. You avert your gaze, pressing your lips together, eyes flicking around the hospital room. Steve doesn’t need clarification, but he’s trying to keep the truth locked tight.

“What?”

You narrow your eyes and give a little scoff, gesturing to him in the bed.

“You showed up at _my_ door, Steve. You said you had nowhere else to go. What about…Nancy, or Tommy, or Carol, or any of your _actual_ friends? Why _me_?”

There are a million possible answers to the question, and none of them are lies. He doesn’t know what Nancy is right now, and he sure as hell doesn’t care about Tommy or Carol. If he’s honest, he isn’t sure those two were ever actually his friends, or if they just existed side by side.

When he ran from the house, Nancy was upstairs and likely furious at him for ditching her, and Barb was busy escaping herself, and Tommy and Carol were up to their usual nonsense. Even if he had asked them for help, he isn’t sure any of them would have given it. 

Steve gives a tiny smile and says, “Because I knew _you_ wouldn’t leave me on the porch.”

You let out a sigh, shaking your head, and push to your feet.

"I don't know what I was…" You shake your head again, frustration evident on your features.

Steve is reminded again of who he was; what you see him as. He's throwing out flowers, but you've only ever received bullets from him, and have no clue what to do with the change, if you can even see it.

“Wait.” You stop a few feet from the door, turning to face Steve, indecision written across your features. Steve scrambles for the right words to say. “Don’t go.”

“Why not?” You retort, cocking a brow. “You’re _clearly_ not going to tell the truth.”

Steve's lips part and guilt coils in his gut. He wants to tell you the truth, the whole story, but there is danger in that honesty.

How the hell is he supposed to look you in the eye and tell you that you’re dead, on top of all the other truths he has? That he loves you, and you loved him, and then you died. How does he say that?

“Look, I can’t…” Steve rakes a hand through his hair, closing his eyes for a long moment. When he opens them, you’re standing behind the chair by the bed, but your expression is still wary. “It’s complicated.”

Your brows furrow and you incline your head, saying, “You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

He scoffs. “I’m not afraid.”

You frown and come around the chair, dropping into it with a twisted expression. Your gaze falls to Steve's bandaged arm, and your expression softens, making Steve's insides twist and tighter. When you lift your eyes to his, resignation is settled in them.

“Okay. Fine. You either can’t, or won’t, tell me.”

“I want to,” Steve says. You cock a brow.

“ _Do_ you?” You ask, and Steve can feel the unspoken words in the question. Unfortunately, he can’t, or won’t, give you the answers now. He has more to do, and getting you tangled up in the mess was never part of the plan.

If Steve succeeds at one thing, let it be saving your life. If, after all this, you're still alive, maybe he can tell you the story.

Until then - until he can guarantee your safety this time around - he can’t take the risk. Even if you don’t know or remember him, even if everything the two of you had died with your death and Steve’s jump. Even if your story is really over.

As long as he still holds it inside, it will never truly end.

A nurse pushes through the door, making you and Steve jump. He stiffens, head snapping toward the nurse as they bring in another clear bag of liquid for his IV.

“What is that?” He asks as the nurse hooks it and reattaches the needles.

The nurse, a man in his early thirties, just nods to Steve’s bandaged arm.

“Antibiotics for the cuts,” he says. He moves to the tray near the door and drags it over, popping open a package and pulling out a syringe that makes Steve stiffen. “And this,” the nurse continues, “is the rabies shot. Just in case the animal that attacked you was infected.”

_It wasn’t an animal_ , Steve thinks, but now isn’t the time for corrections. He allows the nurse to plunge the drugs into him, and he lets the cool liquid from the IV flow through him, keeping his eyes closed until the nurse peels off his gloves and tosses them aside.

“Your boyfriend is very lucky,” the nurse says, voice directed at you. “After this round of IV fluids, he’ll be good to go home. He’ll need a few more injections of the vaccine, but those can be done outpatient.”

As soon as the nurse leaves, Steve looks to you, waggling his brows.

"Boyfriend, huh?" He asks. Your cheeks flush, and you avert your gaze, waving a hand dismissively.

“I mean, it’s not like I could tell them the truth, is it?” You say. “That you passed out on my doorstep.”

“You make it sound like I’m some crazy person who just…” At your cocked brow, Steve trails off, wincing. “Oh. I _am_ just a crazy person who showed up and passed out at your door.”

One side of your mouth twitches, the ghost of a smile edging onto your lips. Steve is so surprised to see it - so surprised for a break in the hostility - that he smiles, too.

“You know, if you wanted to go out, you don’t have to lie to a nurse. Could just ask me,” he says with a wink. You snort a laugh, and the sound simultaneously heals and wounds Steve; it’s been so long since he heard it.

“In your dreams, Harrington,” you retort.

“You a mind reader now?” He asks, and the blush on your cheeks intensified, the tips of your ears going pink. You avert your gaze, rolling your eyes, and Steve allows the words to hang as the joke you’ve taken them as; to him, it’s the saddest, most ironic joke he could tell. To joke about a world in which you and he were together; it can’t be more than a joke, can it?

“Don’t make me regret dragging you here,” you say, narrowing your eyes, though amusement pricks beneath your expression.

“What happened to ‘ _I couldn’t leave you on the porch_?’”

“That was before you opened your mouth,” you say. Steve laughs, and you seem surprised by the noise, head snapping his way, brows twitching. An unspoken question sits in your expression, but you don’t ask it, and Steve doesn’t push for it.

“What?” He asks, meeting your gaze, cocking a brow at your twisted features.

You shake your head and say, “Are you sure you’re okay? You didn’t, like, hit your head, or anything?”

He frowns. “No. Why?”

You lick your lips and shrug. Steve can read the indecision in your eyes, but he can't quite figure out what you're holding back. He misses the days when he could just ask, but those days were gone before he climbed in the machine's chair. Those days died with you, on a raid that went wrong, almost a year ago.

“It’s nothing,” you say, but Steve is reminded of the words you mouthed in class, of _who was that, and what the hell have they done to Steve Harrington?_

"I'm not being a dick, so I must be concussed or something, right?" He asks, unable to keep the edge out of his tone. You prickle, pressing your lips together, nostrils flaring.

“You said it, not me,” you say.

“You _really_ hate me, don’t you?” Steve asks, letting out a humorless huff.

Your gaze snaps to his and shame flickers in your eyes. Steve’s stomach twists, and though he doesn’t want to argue with you, he can’t get past the dizzy sensation he gets just talking to you. You fold your arms across your chest and lean back in the chair.

“I don’t hate _you_ ,” you say. “I hate how you _treat_ people.”

Steve deserves that; hell, he deserves a lot more than that. You’re sugarcoating it.

“Yeah.” He sits back against the stiff hospital pillows, ignoring the thrum of pain as it rolls down his arm and succumbs to the drugs. “I’m not a big fan, either.”

“So change.”

“I di-” Steve stops himself. “I _am_. At least, I’m _trying_ to.”

You don’t say anything, just keep looking at him familiar eyes that shouldn’t be so familiar, and Steve pulls his own gaze away, looking down at the watch on his wrist.

“Where did you get that?” You ask, voice low. Steve stiffens, regret flashing hot in his gut; he should have kept it hidden. You gave him the damn thing, even if you don’t know it, and it was stupid to keep it on.

Though he wasn't originally planning on half-consciously stumbling to your house and dripping blood onto your porch; the night _really_ got away from him.

“It’s-” Steve scrambles for an explanation. “-it was my grandfather’s.”

You press your tongue into your cheek, eyes on the watch for only another moment before you seem to accept Steve's shitty, shitty explanation, and nod.

"I had one just like it," you say, shaking your head. "It was my grandfather's, too. The damn thing disappeared from my dresser the other day."

Steve’s stomach wrenches. It appears, when he jumped back, the world couldn’t allow two of the same thing; it made a choice, and it kept the watch in Steve’s hands. Why, he doesn’t know; maybe to leave him with the last physical piece of you he has.

“Hopefully it turns up,” he says.

You look at him again, a mix between confusion and amusement playing on your features.

“You’re _sure_ you didn’t-”

“For the last time, no, I did _not_ hit my head.”

You hold your hands up in surrender and shrug, saying, “Just checking.”

* * *

Despite not being Steve’s biggest fan, you don’t make to leave the hospital. Steve is grateful when you doze off against the chair, curled up with your arms around your knees, head tipped to one side. In the ten minutes between your falling asleep and the entrance of the nurse who tells Steve he can leave, he simply watches you.

He wishes it felt less creepy, but once again, the only one to place judgment is himself, and he can't bring himself to tear away any of those precious seconds he has to just be with you; even if it's not the same, even if you're not the same. When you're asleep, he can pretend you're back in 1988 - before the deadly raid - and he's watching you sleep on the little couch in the dubbed living room of the warehouse.

Back then, he’d have brushed the stray hairs off your forehead, dropped a kiss to your temple, tugged a blanket up over you. Now, he doesn’t have the right to do anything but look, and even that is questionable.

As soon as the nurse returns with discharge papers, though, Steve forces himself out of the bubble and back to reality. He climbs out of the hospital bed, careful not to stir you as he packs his things up.

Before he leaves, he grabs the pad of paper and pen sitting on the small tray in the corner, scrawling a note down on the paper. He removes the watch from his wrist and sets it down on the bed he just got out of, tucking the note beneath it.

It reads, _Sometimes the things you lose have a way of coming back around. Sorry for being a dick. Thanks again for not ditching me on your porch._

And because he has always been a sap when it comes to you, he signs it with Love, Steve at the bottom, because he can't stop himself, because part of him thinks that if he can give you the pieces, you'll figure it out or remember on your own.

He knows that isn’t going to happen. It doesn’t stop him from wishing.

* * *

When Steve gets home from the hospital early the next morning, he finds Barbara Holland sitting in her car in his driveway. He pulls in beside her, and she’s gotten out and is waiting at his hood by the time he pulls his sore body out of the driver’s seat.

“You’re okay,” he says. “Thank god.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Steve Harrington,” Barb says, pointing a finger at him. “You’re going to tell me what the _hell_ that was last night, and you’re going to tell me _right now_.”

For a moment, Steve's shoulders sink, and he considers lying his ass off and doing whatever possible to evade Barb's line of questioning. But Barbara has seen the Demogorgon; she almost died from it. Technically, the cat is already out of the bag. How is Steve in the wrong for merely giving it a name, seeing as Barbara doesn't have one?

And, though he’s reticent to admit it, he wants to tell someone. He wants to peel this weight off his chest before it has dug its hooks in any further.

When you gave him the watch, all that time ago, you’d said, “ _We aren’t meant to be islands. And if you keep holding it all in, one day, you won’t be an island anymore. You’ll be a volcano. And you won’t survive the eruption_.”

Steve cannot afford to be an island anymore; he’s too accustomed to the opposite.

So, he invites Barbara Holland inside, and he tells her the truth.

* * *

“Why you?” Barbara asks, inclining her head. She leans back into the lawn chair, folding her arms, and Steve is struck by just how different the world already looks. It’s terrifying, but in a way, exhilarating. There may be death ahead, but there might be life, too.

“What do you mean?” Steve asks.

“I _mean_ ,” Barb says, shifting a bit on the chair and looking at Steve, “why was it you that came back?”

Steve frowns and says, “I volunteered.”

Barb rolls her eyes, as if it say _no shit Sherlock_ , and gives a little shake of her head.

“But _why_?”

The ache that settled on his chest a little less than a year ago rears its head, pushing past the walls Steve has carefully constructed to keep it hidden behind. If he thinks about it, if he pokes that wall, the entire structure might come falling down; Steve’s hope might come with it.

“You’re still hiding something,” Barb says. She turns, swinging her legs over the edge of the chair and leaning forward on her knees. “You know I can’t help you if you don’t give me the whole story.”

Steve flicks her an almost desperate look, but she doesn’t back down.

“Why,” she says, “out of everyone, it it you, that has to remember? That has to save everyone?”

There is so much unspoken that Steve feels it in the air, thick and dense, knotting itself around him.

“You’re different,” Barb continues. “Someone, or something, made you different. And I’m pretty the Steve Harrington I remember wouldn’t do this. So, why did you?”

“Because,” Steve says through gritted teeth, “I’m the only one who wasn’t leaving anything behind.”

Steve sees Barb’s brows furrow in her peripheral vision but he doesn’t look at her. He pushes to his feet and off the lawn chair, walking along the edge of the pool, the words battering around his skull.

“Anything,” she asks, “or _anyone_?”

“Nancy had her brother, and Jonathan, and Jonathan had her and his family, and Mike had El, and Lucas had Max, and on, and on,” Steve says, the bitterness he’s done his best to staunch bleeding through. It doesn’t come with any blame - there is no blame to be laid - but it twists, a sour pit in his gut. He’s angry, not at them, but at the world and the universe and all of it.

“You’re not answering the question,” Barb says, cocking a brow, but her tone isn’t as harsh; she’s sensing the unspoken truths Steve is struggling to pull to the surface.

He brushes his thumb across the face of the clock on the watch on his wrist and looks up at Barb.

“Y/N died eleven months ago,” he says, the wound ripping itself open again in his chest. He hears your scream echo in his ears and squeezes his eyes shut for a long moment before looking at Barb again. “The person I love most in the world _died_. So, when I got the chance to go back to a world they were still alive in, I couldn’t _not_ take that.

Barb is quiet for a long time before she speaks again.

“Why not…just forget, too?” Barb asks. “Let someone else remember. Let someone else save the world.”

Steve takes a deep breath and says, “I couldn’t lose them.”

“You already did,” Barb says pointedly. Steve gives her a withering look.

It doesn't even make sense in his head, really, and he can't explain it, but it would feel just as much like a betrayal to forget you as it would be to kiss Nancy Wheeler while he remembers. It feels like a betrayal to let your story go; to let it unravel with the rest of them.

Steve has always know that it would end that way, with the original story scratched from the record, but that doesn't mean he wants to lose it. He doesn't want to forget falling in love with you, doesn't want to forget loving you.

The memories Steve has - the love he still feels - is keeping the old Steve and Y/N alive, even if only in his head and his heart.

“I know it’s…stupid.” He shakes his head. “But I feel like, if someone doesn’t remember them, the way I knew them, all of it, everything that happened to me-” And you were the best thing that ever happened to him. “-would disappear.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid,” Barb says, and her voice is wistful. “I think it’s actually….romantic. Heartbreaking, but romantic.”

"Story of our lives," Steve says. Barb purses her lips, gaze flicking around the backyard and lingering on the pool - the pool she died in before Steve came back and saved her.

“It doesn’t have to be.” She lifts her gaze to his, tucking a ringlet behind her ear. “That’s why you came back, right? To fix it? Or, at least fix as much as you can.”

“That’s the goal.”

Barb nods and says, "Well, you can't do it alone. From the way it sounds, the reason everyone was so helpless was that they were alone. Strength in numbers, you know?"

“I can’t do that to them. To any of them.”

“You don’t do it,” Barb says. “You give them a choice. No one had one the first time around, right?”

“Right.”

"So, that's where we start. We gather up anybody and everybody who ever fought these things, and we give them a choice to fight again."

“And if they don’t?”

“They fought the first time, right?”

“They didn’t have a choice, then.”

“They do now,” Barb says. “And you have to trust them to make the right one.”

Steve lets out a huff and says, “You know, we could have used you the first time around. Might not have gotten so screwed.”

Barb smiles, and her gaze slips to Steve’s pool again.

“Thank you,” she says. “You almost died for me.”

Steve's lips turn down, and he says, "I couldn't let it happen again. Not when I already let it happen, once."

“You thought I’d left,” Barb says. “As far as _you_ knew, nothing was happening.”

“I should have-”

“Harrington,” Barb says, and Steve stops. “I’m not mad at you, and I don’t blame you. How can I? You risked your life to save mine. You didn’t have to.”

“Yes,” he says, “I did.”

Barb presses her lips together.

"Nancy didn't know, either," Steve says, feeling the need to defend her for reasons he doesn't understand; sympathy, perhaps, for the person Nancy became.

“But she should have,” Barb says. Steve’s stomach twists.

"Yeah," he says. "She should have."

The world is full of maybe's. The difference here is that the maybe's now have possibilities; the road looped around, and the same exits shine ahead, and they can take them now knowing what lies beyond.

Even then, Steve is still lost. He’s wondering if he’ll ever figure out what path he’s taking, or if his road is as uncertain as time has proven itself to be.


	3. part 3

**1988**

It is a simple supply run. Mr. Clarke and Dr. Owens need a few parts for the machine that gets closer and closer to being completed each day, and Steve, you, Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan, head out into the deserted streets of Hawkins to the old radio store.

Half the town - the surviving half, at least - left over a year ago, when the Demogorgons took over, and the fight became constant. Now, Hawkins is a ghost town, even to those still alive. The living themselves have become ghosts, in many ways.

The store is empty, the streets silent, but the five of you stay on guard, scanning the streets with weapons raised. Too many lives have been lost while not paying attention, and they are all on high-alert.

Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan sift through the deserted store for the items on the list they were given, you and Steve near the front to watch the street. Steve’s bat hangs from his fingers, and your rifle is in a relaxed grip in your arms.

“I spy with my little eye….” Your eyes narrow as you scan the dark street outside the store. “Something black.”

Steve snorts and says, “Easy. SUV. 4 o’clock.”

You roll your eyes. “This game was a lot more fun when we hadn’t memorized the town.”

“Helps that nothing’s moved in a year,” he says. You grin and lean back into the metal doorframe.

“Fine. How about an episode of all of our favorite show, ‘not living in a wasteland?’”

Steve snorts a laugh, swinging the bat up and over his shoulder. He inclines his head, lips pursed as he thinks.

“Okay, I got one.”

“Shoot.”

Steve leans into the doorway, his gaze trailing absently over the street.

"I'm a rockstar. Touring the country, playing sold-out shows." He lifts his gaze to yours, one side of his mouth quirking up. "In a band, of course."

“Oh, of course,” you say with a smile. “And me?”

“Groupie,” he says. You laugh, rolling your eyes, and Steve grins, crossing the small distance between you and him. He inclines his head, cocking his brows. “Fine,” he amends. “You’re a pop star.”

“Better,” you say. Steve smiles, leaning back against the door beside you, leaning into you. He ducks his chin, pressing a kiss to your temple before lifting his head and scanning the streets beyond.

You follow his line of sight and ask, “See something?”

He frowns, gaze caught on a patch of darkness across the street. The hair rises on the back of his neck, but he can’t see or hear anything to explain where the sensation came from.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Something feels weird.”

“Wanna check it out?”

He nods, flicking a glance back at the others before pushing out onto the asphalt of the street. The once-bustling city streets of Hawkins have long since fallen quiet, but it never ceases to unsettle Steve. He doesn't think he'll ever get used to all the ghosts hanging from sheets, fluttering about the once-living town.

You follow him onto the street, peering through the rifle’s scope, and Steve keeps his eyes on the darkness that keeps drawing him in, like a tether. He heads in its direction, bat raised, and stops a few feet away at the shifting of the shadows.

He opens his mouth to speak, to warn you, but before he can, a Demogorgon steps out of the shadows. It doesn’t attack him; why the hell doesn’t it attack him?

Your scream splits the sky open behind him, and Steve understands the connections, though too late. The Demogorgon in the shadows was the bait, and Steve was the idiot who took it and left you alone. He practically leaped into the trap set for him.

“Steve, go!” Nancy screams from the doorway, and Steve ducks in time for the shotgun to blast over his head, smacking the creature in the chest. It staggers back, and Nancy fires another shot, but Steve doesn’t wait to see whether it falls; he’s too focused on you.

Robin, in a fit of rage, has already half-way decapitated the Demogorgon that slashed you, and Steve finishes the job with his bat. The moment the thing falls, Steve falls, too, at your side.

Jonathan has a hand pressed to your neck, but blood streams through his fingers, down your neck, staining your clothing and the asphalt below. Your lips part, blood bubbling up, and Steve looks to Jonathan, who gives the smallest shake of his head.

Steve’s world shatters, but right now, he can’t break with it; right now, you’re dying beneath him, and he refuses to let his meltdown be the last thing you see.

Instead, he ever-so-gently pulls you into his arms, and Jonathan keeps a hand pressed to your ruined neck, but both men know they are on borrowed time; Jonathan’s hand will only staunch the blood for so long.

Once upon a time, they’d take you to a hospital. Once upon a time, you might have survived this. Once upon a time is too long ago to matter, now.

Steve cups your cheek in his hand, unable to stop the tears that stream down his face and drip onto yours, mixing with the red. You let out a tiny sob, choked with blood, and Steve shakes his head, murmuring, “ _Shhhhh_ , it’s alright.”

“Steve,” you whimper.

“I’m here,” he says, ducking his chin, pressing his lips to your forehead. The foundation of his world is crumbling, but he refuses to dip beneath it yet. Not yet. Not while you’re still here. “It’s okay, I’ve got you, I’m here.”

“I don’t-” You stammer. “I don’t wanna-”

“Shhh, try not to talk,” he says, pulling back and forcing a tiny smile onto his lips. “It’s gonna be fine. You’re gonna be fine, okay?”

Your eyes flutter shut, and you nod, letting out a small breath. Steve ducks his head again, but this time, he stays there, stays until your heart stops beating, and long after.

It is only when more Demogorgon’s show up that Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan physically drag him away from you, with the assurance they’ll come back for you.

And so, Steve leaves you behind in a pool of blood on the asphalt of a dead town.

**1983**

When Steve gets home from school, he finds yet another strange car in his driveway. This one, however, he recognizes as yours. He takes a full thirty seconds after he parks to prepare himself before climbing out and nudging the door shut behind him, turning to face where you stand with your arms crossed in his driveway.

“Hey,” he says, as casually as he can.

“I need to talk to you,” you say.

“Doesn’t anybody call anymore?” He asks exasperatingly, jerking a chin toward the back of his house. “Whatever. Come on.”

“Trust me,” you say, following him and jogging to walk beside him. “You don’t want to have this conversation over the phone.”

Steve flicks a glance in your direction - your brows are furrowed, your eyes narrowed, your lips pursed - and swallows thickly.

“Well,” he says, “You look pissed, so over the phone doesn’t sound all that bad.”

You flash him a glare, and his insides twist. He keeps a calm expression, but your gaze cuts him like a knife.

He drops down onto one of the lawn chairs - the new confession spot, it seems - and you sit down on the chair beside his, perched on the edge like you’re seconds from bolting.

It’s odd, Steve thinks, that he’s at his most comfortable around you even despite the gaps, and you’re treating him like a lion on the prowl. You have seen the worst of him, and only that, and though Steve knows it - remembers how long it took for both of you to get past your personal issues the first time - it still stings.

“So,” Steve says, clearing his throat. “What’s up?”

Your brows furrow as you pull the watch Steve left on the hospital bed the day prior out of your pocket, lifting it. You shake your head, confusion dotting your features.

"My grandpa's watch has a little crack on the face," you say, avoiding Steve's gaze."It happened when I was a kid. I dropped it." The crease between your brows deepens, and your eyes find Steve's. " _This_ -” You shake the watch. “-has a crack on it, in the _same_ place. You said it’s your grandfather’s, but I _know_ this watch. It’s the one I lost. So tell me, Steve,” You incline your head. “Where the hell did you get my watch?”

Steve’s lips part, and Barb’s reminder - ‘ _You can’t do it alone_ ’ - flashes in his eyes.

You were always the best ally Steve had. And as much as he hates to admit it, he needs you. And just because he tells you the truth doesn’t mean he has to tell you the whole truth. Right?

He imagines the judgment for this choice will come back to bite him in the ass later, but he’s not brave enough to face it right now.

"You gave it to me," Steve says simply.

“What? No, I didn’t.”

Steve takes a breath and says, “Look, this isn’t going to make a lot of sense, so I’m gonna try and lay it out as clear as possible, but I need you to just listen for a second, okay?” He makes the words as gentle as possible, wary of your perceptions of him, and to his relief, your desperation for answers overrides any of that.

“You’ve got two minutes,” you say. Steve nods.

“Okay. So, basically, in 1989-”

You let out an angry breath and begin to stand, but Steve reaches out, a hand touching yours, and you still. He pleads with his eyes and says, “You gave me two minutes.”

Your brows furrow, but after a moment, you lower back down. Steve swallows the stone in his throat and tries again.

“I know it sounds crazy. Trust me.” He licks his lips. “I’m not from here. Like, from 1983. I…” He shakes his head and give a half shrug. “I came back from 1989. I…travelled through time.” He winces, your expression saying it all. “I know, I get it, I know. But I’m telling the truth. How else would I have gotten the watch if _you_ didn’t give it to me?”

You hesitate, the facts in his words seeming to make you consider. You snap, “Fine. But you still haven’t told me _why_ I gave it to you.”

“Well, if _someone_ would stop _interrupting_ me…” He says, one side of his mouth quirking up. At your cold expression, he nods curtly and continues. “Like I was saying, I came back from 1989 in a machine that Dustin Henderson, Scott Clarke, and this scientist dude, Dr. Owens, made. It was powered by this girl, Eleven. And this is where it gets really weird, so I'm just…gonna say it." You narrow your eyes, but you're clearly enamored by his words, even if you never admit it. "There are monsters, and-" He shakes his head and rakes a hand through his hair. "-parallel universes, and teenagers with, like, superpowers. And I fought them, with a bunch of kids from town, and Nancy and her brother, and the Byers, and Chief Hopper, and…" He pauses, letting out a breath and gathering his strength. "With _you_.”

The shock the fills your expression erases any reservation or irreverence.

“With me?”

Steve nods, and heat crawls up his cheeks.

“That’s not it,” he says.

“How is that not it?” You ask. “I mean, even _that_ is….it sounds…”

“Unbelievable?”

“Yeah,” you breathe.

“Do _you_?”

“What?”

“Believe _me_.”

You fall silent for a long time before saying, almost reluctantly, “Yes.” You shake your head. “I don’t know why, but I do.” You find his gaze, nose scrunching. “I mean, it makes no sense, but you’re different, and you’re…hanging out with Barbara Holland and not Tommy H, and you’re…I don’t know. _Different_.” You shrug. “So, what else?”

Nerves skitter across Steve's skin, and his tongue is dry as sandpaper and thick in his mouth. The truth, the half-truth, and nothing but the half-truth.

“You and I were… _together_ for three years.”

You recoil, brows knitting together, and say, “No, we weren’t-”

“Think about it,” Steve says. “How else would I get this? How else would I…be different, like you said? You _know_ something’s weird, and you _know_ this makes sense.”

“ _Barely_ ,” you say.

"But, it does."

You inhale slowly, closing your eyes for a long moment.

“I really gave it to you?” You ask.

_No_ , Steve thinks. _Technically, I took it off your dead body. That, and your gun. Couldn’t exactly bring that back in time, though._

“Yeah,” Steve says.

“If you and I were…” You flick a glance at him, then away. “ _That_ …why would you come back here? Why _did_ you come back?”

Steve's pulse spikes, and he prays you can't see the blush creeping across his cheeks.

Half-truth, he reminds himself. Not a lie, not technically.

“Because the Hawkins I’m from is dying. Hell, it’s already dead. Almost everyone is dead or gone, and the monsters are spreading. They’re going further and further. Half of Indiana is on fire.” He sucks in a breath, memories pricking painfully behind his eyelids. “Eleven, the telepath, she was able to…I don’t really know how, but she powered this machine that the others built.”

He allows himself a single lie; a little white lie.

“I was the only one who _could_ go. Something about blood type or genetics, or, like some other sciencey stuff I did _not_ understand.”

“So, you came back to…fix things before they break, right?”

Steve nods, thankful you're catching on just as quickly as you did when you'd gotten dragged into the madness in high school when the Demodogs first reared their heads.

You shift your weight uncomfortably, and Steve knows the question before you speak it.

“You can ask,” he says. “About us.”

You frown and say, hesitantly, “Were we… _happy_?”

Memories fire behind his eyes, good and beautiful and lovely, but they quickly drown beneath your screams and your blood staining his hands. Half-truth.

It is selfish and morally questionable, but there is no one here to judge.

“Yeah,” he says. “We were _really_ , really happy. _Stupid_ happy.”

Steve weaves a beautiful web of lies, and he wraps you in the story rather than letting you fall to the concrete below. He even lets himself believe it's true, that the happy ending was yours, that Steve was the brave soldier on a mission and not the desperate heartbroken boy he truly is.

He weaves the lie, and you believe it.

* * *

Barbara shows up a little bit later, as planned, and arches her brows at Steve as she walks up behind you. Steve rolls his eyes, and you crane to look as Barbara comes to sit beside you on the lawn chair.

“You’re part of this, too?”

“I mean, I died the first time, but yeah,” Barb says. One side of Steve’s mouth quirks up at your astonished expression. In explanation, Barb says, “The first time, one of the Demo-” Her brows furrow and she looks to Steve for assurance she’s speaking correctly, and at his nod, continues. “-gorgons…” Her brows furrow, eyes glazing for a beat. “It killed me.”

“Oh my god,” you say. “Barb, I’m-”

"It's okay," she says. Her brows arch, and she nods to Steve. "I'm alive because of Steve. If it weren't for him, I'd be exactly where I was."

You look to Steve, and your expression makes him antsy, like the gears are turning in your mind, and he can see the perceptions shifting; he just doesn't know what they're shifting _to_.

“You saved her?”

“That’s how I ended up at your door,” Steve says sheepishly. “I…I got hurt, and, I don’t know, I guess in my half-passed-out state, I just walked somewhere. Walked to _you_.” Your expression softens, and Steve shrugs and clears his throat. “Anyways. Barb and I are all we have.”

“So far,” Barb says

“So far,” Steve agrees. “ _Which_ is why Barb is here. We were gonna figure out a game plan.”

Barb rolls her eyes and says, “ _Jocks_.” Steve flashes her a tiny smile.

He presses his lips together, hesitating a moment before speaking again, saying, “If you want in, you’re in. But I understand if you don’t want any part of this. None of us got to choose the first time, and I won’t take the choice away again.” He shrugs, and something akin to sadness flickers in your eyes just long enough for Steve to catch it.

“I’m in,” you say, without hesitation. You lean forward, forearms on your knees, and cock a brow. “What _exactly_ are we talking about here?"

* * *

Figuring out the plan - today’s plan, as Steve can’t really go any farther than day to day at this point - is simple, but the execution is guaranteed to be difficult. They need to retrieve El, debrief her and the kids, and get her somewhere safe, somewhere the scientists would never think to look; somewhere always empty: Steve’s house.

Making that happen, though, is no simple task. For starters, the kids themselves have only known El two days, and Will is still ‘missing.’ It doesn’t help that none of them is a fan of Steve’s at this point, either, especially not with his past with Nancy.

Nancy, who he abruptly broke up with and gave little explanation. It was rushed, during lunch, and though he tried to be as gentle and nice as possible, there was no easy to way do it, and he refused to tell Nancy about any of this before you; it felt too much like betrayal.

But they need El somewhere safe, and they need to start bringing people into the fold. The kids are most at risk, and therefore, the first stop on the tour.

* * *

“So, she grew up in this lab, right? The one out near the lake?” You ask, sitting in the passenger seat of Steve’s car, squished between him and Barb. If either of you moved an inch, you’d be touching, but Steve doesn’t move.

The last day has already been a continuous slap to the face, but his confession by the pool only rips the rug further from beneath you.

It’s unbelievable. Impossible. It can’t be the truth. And yet, for some godforsaken reason, you believe him. You believe Steve Harrington, of all people, when he tells you a horror story, and then a love story; _your_ love story.

You almost wish you didn’t believe him. It would make it easier to ignore the sadness that shades his gaze every time he looks at you; it would make it easier to pretend you don’t notice every time he almost reaches for you, like muscle memory.

A guilt you don’t understand coils in your gut. You don’t feel bad for him, but you don’t feel good, either. You feel…off. Bad, in general. You wish you could make it stop, whatever he’s feeling. You don’t know why, and you don’t understand it, but when he looks at you the way he does, you find yourself _wishing_ you remembered.

"Yeah," Steve says. "She escaped a few days ago, and they've been chasing her ever since. Benny Hammond's death was a cover-up. And all those utility vans that are multiplying around town? The lab."

“Assholes,” Barb says, shaking her head. “She’s a _kid_ for god’s sake.”

“Not to them,” Steve says, pursing his lips. “To them, she’s just a weapon.”

He tightens his grip on the wheel, and your heart twinges for the boy you don’t know but wish you did.

“So, we keep her safe,” you say. One side of Steve’s lips lifts, and he flicks a glance at you.

“We keep them _all_ safe,” he says, and you don’t miss the darkness that dances in his eyes as he speaks.

* * *

“You’re sure this is okay?” Steve asks, standing behind Barb as she ducks to tug a small spare key from beneath a fake rock near the back door. Barb flashes him a withering look.

“I’m Nancy’s best friend. They _told_ me this key was here.”

“Still,” Steve says with a shrug. Barb smiles, sticking the key in the door.

"All of a sudden, you're concerned with the law? Haven't you been killing monsters for five years?" She asks.

“More or less,” Steve says. Barb laughs, and your lips turn up in a smile, too. Steve forces down the ache that tries to settle on his chest.

He's not your person anymore, even if you're still his.

Barb nudges the door open, and you and Steve filter in after her. In the living room, the teenager's Steve remembers are children again.

He'd forgotten how young they looked; Dustin with his gap-tooth grin and Mike's bowl cut and El's clean-shaven head and Lucas' ever-present bandana. They're little, once again, not the hardened soldiers Steve left behind. They don't know him, haven't fought with him. The story is only in its first act, even if Steve has seen the ending.

At their entrance, Mike shifts in front of El where she sits perched on the couch, and Lucas’ expression twists with distrust. Dustin’s brows furrow as he says, “Steve Harrington?”

“What the hell is going on?” Mike asks. “Barb, what are you-”

Behind Mike, Eleven - small, still scared, still so young - pushes to her feet and moves to stand beside him, her gaze flicking between Steve, Barb, and you.

“El-” Mike protests, the other boys tensing; their relationship with El is new and tense, too, but they seem to trust her more than Steve and you, at least for now.

“It’s not safe-” Lucas says.

El shakes her head at them, stepping forward, brows furrowing as she looks between you and Steve.

She inclines her head and says, “Trust.” Confusion dots her features as she lifts a hand to her chest, then stretches it out between you and Steve.

"You remember me?" Steve asks, hope blooming in his chest. El's frown deepens, and she shakes her head.

“Not remember…” She shakes her head. “ _Trust_. Why?”

Steve lets out a breath, raking a hand through his hair, and says, "Buckle up, kids. It's storytime."

* * *

After an hour and a half spent convincing - arguing, bickering, with a little bit of yelling - the boys that El is safer with Steve than at the Wheeler’s, they finally agree to let her leave with you, Barb, and Steve.

If it weren’t for El’s odd familiarity - her _trust, not remember_ \- regarding Steve, you’re fairly sure the plan would have failed.

Part of you, a part you don’t understand, finds yourself jealous of El. Even if she doesn’t remember, she _knows_ that something has changed and can almost pinpoint it. She knows something is missing, and she can point at it, even if she can't see it. 

You wish you were that lucky. Instead, you feel… _wrong_. Like you’re hurting Steve just by being there. You don’t know why you care, why you’re even the slightest bit concerned with Steve Harrington of all people, but when he looks at you like that, when he says your name the way he does, you wish you remembered. You wish you understood.

According to Steve, El will stay at his home where she’s safest - where the lab will never think to look - as they bring the others into the fold. Joyce and Him, Nancy and Jonathan, and Robin. Each must be told, and each must be asked.

“You can come over whenever you want,” Steve tells the boys. “Which, you probably would have done even if I _didn’t_ say it, so I’m _saying_ it. Just, not before 10 am, okay?”

“Fat chance,” Dustin says. Steve narrows his eyes, to which the boys grin.

You and Barb linger near the door as El gathers her things, and Steve talks to the boys.

You were never Barbara Holland’s best friend, always just acquaintances, classmates. Now, she’s one of many new allies.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” She asks.

“What?”

“Being here,” she says, a teasing smile on her lips. “I mean, if it weren’t for Steve, we’d both still be dead. Sure, you made it way farther than I did, but…” She shakes her head.

Your stomach drops, all the blood rushing out of you, cold ice flooding your veins. You’ve never known Barbara Holland to lie, but there’s no way she’s telling the truth. Or, is she? 

_We’d both still be dead._

“Yeah,” you say, forcing your tone to stay even. “It’s weird.”

The pieces of the puzzle begin to fall in place: Steve’s honesty in some cases and avoidance in others, the way he looks at you like it hurts, and perhaps, most damning of all, the watch.

Steve says you gave it to him, but you're beginning to wonder if that is true, at all. If you gave it to him or if he took it, if it was the last memento he had of a dead lover.

You don't know what to do with the realization, don't know how to hold it, or put it down. All you know is that Steve Harrington has been lying, and you're determined to learn the truth.


	4. part 4

**1983**

Though Steve is initially reluctant to let Barbara tell Nancy, Jonathan, Mrs. Byers, and Hopper the truth on her own, she brings up a solid point when she mentions that they’re all far more likely to listen to her - to trust her - than they are Steve, at least right now.

She says it gently, gentler than Steve would have expected. Of all the ripples of his butterfly effect, striking a friendship with Barbara Holland of all people was nowhere in the ballpark of what he imagined.

Seeing as you’re still weird with him, and most everyone else either hates or dislikes him, Barbara is all he has. And he likes her. He always thought she was just some smart, quiet girl, one that died far too soon, but over the last few days, he’s come to know Barbara as shockingly funny, witty, loyal, and more than anything, kind. She’s easy to talk to, and she wants to hear what Steve has to say, and he, to his surprise, wants to know what she has to say, too.

He hasn’t had a friend like this since Robin, and he’s missed the ease of the conversation, the normalcy that two people can have. He’s spent so long in a war zone, he’d forgotten it was even possible.

He trusts Barbara, so he lets her go on her own. He makes sure she knows what points to hit, and instructs her to gather the others tomorrow, so you, he, and El can go over the plan with the others and debrief.

It’s the first time in a long time he hasn’t had to do anything. There are no perimeters to patrol or machines to tinker on or beasts to fight; for tonight, Steve is just Steve, and he’s a teenager once again, normal and easy.

His parents will be out of town for the rest of the week, meaning El has free rein of the house, and when he gets home from school, he finds her standing in front of the pantry with an awed expression.

"Hey," he says, setting his backpack down on the counter. El turns to face him, distrust flickering in her expression for the briefest moment before recognition and ease settle on her features.

She looks so young, dwarfed in the sweats and hoodie she got from Mike, her hair buzzed short, her movements hesitant. She still sees herself as the sheep, cowering in the herd, but the El Steve knows was never a sheep to begin with; she's always been the wolf.

She hesitates a moment, turning over her small vocabulary, and Steve waits patiently as she sorts through her words before speaking.

“School over?” She asks. Steve nods, flashing her a smile as he ducks around the island and pops open the fridge, pulling out two cans of sprite.

“Yep. No school until tomorrow morning at 8 AM. Which, if you didn’t know, is tragically early.”

El’s expression brightens at the sight of the can, and Steve’s grin widens. He slides it across the island to her, and though she seems to expect surprise from him when she pops the tab with her mind, Steve doesn’t react.

“Tragic-ally?” El asks, inclining her head. Steve nods, popping the top on his own drink and taking a swig before answering.

“It means… _bad_. Like, really bad.”

El nods contentedly. “Tragic-ally.” She repeats the word to herself a few times, smiling like Steve has given her a gift.

The El he knew back in 1989 was a close friend of his, and when the town's shops closed and Steve was the only person who knew their way around a pair of scissors, he became the hairdresser of the warehouse, and El spent a lot of time hanging out with him in the storage-room-delegated-barber-shop. They chattered about nothing; El was working her way through comic books, so she'd describe them to Steve.

This El is different, but he feels the same fierce protectiveness and affection he did for the other. Eleven, a child who had to grow up too fast, who still managed to hold onto the light even when it went out.

“Steve.” El doesn’t pose it as a question, but he takes it as one, meeting her gaze and arching his brows.

“Yeah?”

"Thank you," she says, uncertain with the words, her brows pulling together. Steve's lips pull into a tiny smile, and he shakes his head.

“You know I won’t let anything happen to you, right?”

El smiles, and though it’s clear she doesn’t believe it - Steve isn’t sure he does either, but he needs El to know that someone is standing with her - she nods.

Steve clears his throat and claps his hands.

“You hungry? I haven’t eaten all day. Mystery meat in the cafeteria wasn’t something I really wanted to risk, so…” He shrugs and grins. “Food?”

“Food,” El agrees.

“I know you’ve got your thing with waffles, but you haven’t had _my_ pancakes yet, and I think they might turn you off the Eggos for good," Steve says, moving around the kitchen and setting ingredients on the counter as he goes. Mix, eggs, oil, chocolate chips - at El's request - etc., etc. He's about to crack the first egg when the doorbell rings, and he and El go rigid, meeting each other's gazes with tense expressions. 

“It’s probably just some door-to-door salesman,” Steve says. “I’ll get them to go away.”

“Door to door…sail-man?”

“Salesman,” Steve says. “They go around and pester people into buying shit they don’t need. Like, vacuums, and stuff.”

El purses her lips, and Steve stops beside her, touching her arm lightly.

“It’ll be okay,” he says. “I promise. Just stay here, okay? And if you hear anything weird-”

“Run.”

Steve smiles. “ _Run_.”

* * *

You stand outside the Harrington’s door, rocking back and forth on your heels, already regretting your decision to come.

You’re not even really sure why you came; why you decided Steve Harrington was worthy of spending your time with. Maybe it’s the things he told you, or maybe it’s the things he hasn’t, or maybe it’s the thing you won’t admit to yourself; the pull you feel toward him, half curiosity and half something you don’t understand.

You don’t know him, exactly, but you _almost_ do; you want to.

Three seconds before you turn and retreat to your car, the door opens, and Steve steps into view. He's shed the school facade, wearing only gray sweats and a faded tee, the short sleeves pressing into his biceps as he grips the door in one hand. You force your eyes away from his arms, from the sliver of skin peeking out over his waistband where the shirt has ridden up, and meet his gaze.

“Hey,” he says, confusion evident in his expression. “What are you…” He seems to rethink his words. “What’s up?”

You press your lips together, folding your arms across your chest and giving a half shrug.

“Figured you and El might want some company,” you say. Steve’s brows lift, something indecipherable flickering in his eyes, and he hesitates a moment too long before responding.

His lips pull into a thin line for a beat before he says, “Look, I don’t mean to sound like a dick, I’m just…I kinda figured you hated me.”

Something twists inside your chest when you reply, "It's shocked me to my core, but I actually like you." The words don't feel like yours, but you say them anyway.

Shock shatters any walls Steve has up, and he doesn’t hide the surprise, sucking in a breath. He recovers quickly, clearing his throat and stepping back.

“Come on in,” he says. “I was just making El dinner.”

You step into the house, and he nudges the door shut behind you, leading you back into the kitchen, overly aware of your presence behind him. In the kitchen, El stands behind the island like it's a shield, but at your arrival, she relaxes and smiles.

Steve tugs out one of the barstools, and you drop onto it, El moving to sit beside you, and he returns to the stove, mixing ingredients into a bowl deftly.

“I didn’t know you could cook,” you say, something akin to admiration fluttering inside you. Steve casts a quick glance your way, one side of his mouth pulling into a smirk.

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” he says. You cock your brows, and he looks away, returning to the task, but the evasion isn’t missed.

El looks between you and says, "You are…" She pauses, seeming to turn the words over in her head like she can't find the right one. "Together."

“ _No_ ,” you say quickly.

“Yeah,” Steve says, and quickly realizes his mistake. “Sorry. Uh, not anymore.” He turns back to the stove, clearly relieved for somewhere else to look, and your stomach churns.

“We were, in the future,” Steve says. “Where I come from.”

El nods, and says, “Not now?”

Steve doesn’t look your way, but his jaw clenches as he flicks on the burner and sets the pan on top of it.

“No,” he says. “Not now.”

* * *

You seem surprised when Steve sets down a plate of pancakes, eggs, and sliced fruit in front of you and El, and even more so when you take a bite and don’t immediately spit it out. Satisfaction coils warmly in Steve’s gut, and he stands on the other side of the island eating his own helping, watching with a faint smirk on his lips.

“So,” you say after a while, “do you have a plan for this whole thing? Once Barb brings everyone else in?”

Steve takes a swig from his water cup and grimaces, brows furrowing.

"We need to close the gate. Which is both really simple and really fucking complicated." He flicks a glance at El and crinkles his nose. "Sorry. Really _freaking_ complicated.”

“Complicated because…” You say.

Steve rakes a hand through his hair, shifting back to lean against the sink counter behind him, folding his arms across his chest.

“In 1983, when El tried the close the gate the first time, it didn’t…I don’t know, it didn’t _shut_ all the way. Which is why it had to be shut a second time. And then, those bastards cracked the door, and El closed it, but lost her powers.” Steve’s lips pull thin as the memories flicker behind his eyelids. “In ’87, the Russians tried again, and they opened it all the way. By the time El got her powers back, though, there were too many gates opened around Indiana to even think about shutting them.”

“Not powerful enough,” El says. Steve purses his lips.

“You,” Steve says, “are pretty friggin’ powerful, but-” He shakes his head. “-right now, this you, isn’t as strong as the one I knew. Not yet. I mean, even then, we needed a machine the size of a bus to give you the strength to send me back. It’s not that you’re not powerful.” He shrugs. “It’s…it’s just too big of a fight to handle yourself.”

“If only we could build a machine in the next day,” you say, clearly joking. El smiles, a little sad, and though Steve wants to comfort her, something in your words spark the gears in his head, and old memories roll like film credits as he tries to pin whatever itches.

He thinks of a story El herself told him, of a girl with a tattoo and abilities like her own, of a different escape attempt at a different time. A girl that is just as strong, if not stronger, than El.

The lightbulb flicks on in his head, and he exhales sharply, looking between you and El.

“We don’t need a machine,” he says. “We’ve got something better.”

You incline your head, looking to El as if for explanation, but El is just as lost as you, frowning as she stares at Steve.

"You told me about this other girl in the lab with you," Steve says, eyes on El. "008."

El inclines her head for a beat before recognition fills her eyes, and she repeats, "008."

“Anybody wanna tell me what 008 means?” You ask.

“Sister,” El says. A sad smile tugs on Steve’s lips as he flicks a glance at El, then at you.

“Kali.” Steve shakes his head, hope and anticipation coiling in his chest. “If we can find her, we don’t need another machine. We’d have two psychics.” He looks to El. “Could you do it? If she did it with you? Do you think that’s enough?”

A wicked, determined grin tugs on El’s lips as she says, “ _Enough_.”

* * *

Steve finds you a few minutes later in the kitchen, stacking dishes in the sink, having taken El up to one of the bedrooms.

“Hey,” he says, coming to stand beside you, flipping on the water. You fall into a silent rhythm, him washing, you drying, neither speaking until the dishes have been put back in their places and the distractions are all gone.

“Where’s El?” You ask.

“She’s finding Kali,” he says.

“ _Finding_ her? How?”

He crinkles his nose, a tiny smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

“I don’t know.” He shrugs a shoulder. “Some psychic mambo jambo.”

A laugh pops out of your mouth before you can stop it, and you say through giggles, “You mean _mumbo jumbo_?”

“Sure,” Steve says. “Or that.”

You snort, not missing Steve's gaze lingering on your face for a moment too long. It makes your stomach churn, indecipherable and twisting emotions blooming inside you.

It almost hurts when he looks at you. He looks at you like you’re the damn sun, and you _know_ why, but you don’t _understand_ why; Why, and how, out of all people, somewhere down the line, you and Steve Harrington fell in love.

“So,” he says after a moment, “El and I are gonna head out in like fifteen minutes, but you’re welcome to hang here as long-”

“ _What_?”

Steve stops, lips parting. “What?”

You fold your arms across your chest and cock your brows, resignation settling atop your shoulders.

“I’m coming with you.”

“No,” Steve says, “you’re not.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s dangerous.”

"You're just picking this girl up from Chicago, and bringing her back, right?" Steve gives you a withering look, and you wave a hand dismissively. "Okay, so it's not _as_ simple as that, but it’s not like…like we’re going into battle, or something. It’s basically a grocery run, if the grocery store was three hours away. What’s the worst that could happen?”

His expression darkens, and his jaw twitches. You've poked a wound, unintentionally, but now that you have, you can't keep yourself from pushing deeper; he's still holding his secret to his chest, with no realization that you've already seen his cards.

_Why didn’t you tell me?_ You want to ask. What actually comes out of your mouth is, “Unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”

Steve doesn’t break beneath the pressure, merely letting out a sigh and rolling his eyes.

“Fine,” he says. “Whatever. But _I’m_ driving.”

You grin and say, “Fine by me.”

* * *

“Harrington, if you don’t _slow down_ , I will open the door and jump the _fuck_ out,” you snap, grabbing onto the oh-shit handle as Steve whizzes a corner, his car whipping onto the street. You flick an apologetic smile at El in the backseat. “I mean, jump the _hell_ out.”

Steve snorts and says, “Because _that’s_ better.” He flashes you a smirk. “Jump. I dare you.”

You grumble in defeat, sitting back against the seat, keeping one hand on the passenger door handle; perhaps in spite, perhaps for safety, though you’ll never admit which.

“Turn right,” El pipes from the backseat. Steve curses, slamming on the brakes just in time to turn around the next corner.

“If you could give me, like, _two_ seconds more warning, El, that would be _great_ ,” Steve says. El grins triumphantly, and you look over your shoulder to give her a wink.

“There,” she says, pointing to a dimly lit warehouse at the end of the street.

“Nice place,” you say. Steve huffs a laugh.

Steve pulls slowly off the street and onto the cracking lot, though he doesn't drive up, letting the car linger behind a few abandoned storage compartments. It takes you a moment to realize he's shielding the car from view.

You start to wonder if, maybe, he isn’t as stupid as everyone thinks he is; if maybe, he never was.

“We’re lucky they’re even here,” Steve says, putting the car in park. “El’s a year early to the party.”

“Better than late, I guess,” you say. Steve flashes you a small smile before turning to El, clicking off his seatbelt.

“Okay. You and I will-”

“ _No_ ,” you and El say at the same time. El recovers first, continuing to speak. “I go alone.”

“Yeah, _not_ happening,” Steve snaps.

"Kali trusts me." El purses her lips. "Not you." She lifts a hand to her neck and slowly slices a finger across it, poking out her tongue.

“Got it,” Steve says. “Jesus. But-”

“She’ll be fine, Steve,” you say, reaching out to touch his arm, moving without thinking. His eyes fall to your fingers on his sleeve and dart back up. “El can take care of herself.” You tear your gaze from his and look to El. “Right?”

She smiles and says, “Right.”

Steve frowns. “Fine. But if anything happens, and I mean _anything_ , you get the hell out of there, got it?”

El nods, amusement and something soft and affectionate playing on her features; you wonder when the last time someone _genuinely_ worried for her safety was, if there was a last time. 

“I understand,” El says, undoing the seatbelt and popping the door open. She looks between the two of you, giving a reassuring smile. “See you soon.”

She climbs out of the car, heading for the warehouse, looking back only once before disappearing into the darkness shadowing the building. Steve keeps his eyes on her, jaw tense, fingers curled into fists in his lap.

“She’ll be okay,” you say. “She can do this.”

"I know," Steve says. He exhales sharply, shaking his head. "If anyone can hold their own, it's the twelve-year-old telepath."

Your stomach twists. “You’re good with her.”

“Another unexpected character trait?” He asks, cocking a brow. You snort, rolling your eyes, and the ghost of a smile plays on his lips. “Back in ’89, she and I were close.” He shrugs. “She and Max were like…the little sisters I never had.” His cheeks go pink and he raises his gaze to the dark warehouse ahead. “They were _all_ the family I never had, I guess.”

You sit back against the seat, a million questions churning in your head. You don't voice them for a long time, letting your eyes rest on the darkness El disappeared into, searching for her frame. Only when the words battering around your skull are too loud to ignore do you release a handful of them.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot,” Steve says, both your gazes remaining forward.

“What happened to you?” You ask. “I know-” You shake your head. “-time changes people, but you’re…you’re _nothing_ like the guy I remember. Or, you _are_ , in some ways, but…” You shake your head again. “What happened to make you so _different_?”

You flick a glance at Steve, and he has a sad smile on his lips that makes him look a thousand years old and wise beyond his years.

"The short version? I guess I realized I only cared about the things I cared about because other people told me to." He huffs softly and sneaks you a look. "Shorter version? I met _you_.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me the truth? That night in the hospital?” _Or right now_ , you think, but force those words away and continue. “Were you… _fine_ with me not knowing you?”

Steve lets out a laugh that twists in the air and stings your skin, the sound strained and almost strangled.

“Fine?” He asks. “Pretending not to know you-” He looks at you, and it’s evident the word know is a replacement for another. “-was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Why do it, then?” You ask. A sadness and anger that doesn’t feel like yours, but somehow is, coils hot and sharp in your chest. You feel like he’s taken something away; taken it before you got to have it.

He hesitates a moment before he says, “How was I supposed to tell you? It’s not like you’re my biggest fan. I can’t just…roll up to your locker and tell you that I’m-” He stops, swallowing. “That you were in love with me. Would you have believed me?”

You purse your lips, answer in the silence. Steve snorts bitterly, nodding.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s what I thought.”

“You still should have told me.”

“Why?” He snaps. “What does it change?”

“I don’t know! Because _you_ didn’t give me a chance.”

He shakes his head, lip curling. "I should never have told you in the first place. I shouldn't have gotten you involved."

“What happened to giving everyone a choice?”

“It’s different.”

“Why? What makes it different?” You cock a brow, and Steve clenches his teeth. “Because it’s me?”

“You _know_ it is,” he says.

You sigh, tabling the secrecy for the moment; a getaway car outside an abandoned warehouse isn’t the _best_ spot for such a conversation.

“Whether you like it or not, I made my choice. I’m part of this.”

Steve shakes his head, letting out a breath that verges on a laugh.

“It’s not like I can stop you,” he says, and you’re surprised he doesn’t fight the issue further. “You always were a good sidekick.”

“I may not remember it, but I’m _damn_ sure _you_ were the sidekick in this partnership,” you say. Steve flashes a grin, brows twitching.

“You did always take the spotlight. We were clearing out the Baker’s farm in ’87, and you found this big scythe. You were _scary_ good with the thing," Steve says, expression softening and eyes glazing as you remember. "A little overdramatic at times." He sends you a wink, and you scoff. 

“Says the drama queen himself.”

Steve grins and shrugs, sinking lower in the driver's seat, folding his arms. Loose strands of hair flop over his forehead, and you resist the urge to reach out and brush them back, cursing your fingers for their traitorous wants.

You don't know what you feel or think about Steve Harrington, and until he's told you the whole truth, you don't think you'll figure it out. Even then, he might be a more tangled knot than you realized, more challenging to unravel.

In contrast, he’s already unraveled you. He knows you better than you know yourself, and the knowledge is both terrifying and, admittedly, weirdly comforting; to know that someone out there loves you like that, even if it sometimes hurts to think about.

Before you get a chance to think on it further, two silhouettes emerge from the darkness ahead: El, and a girl with black and purple hair, her eyes lined with kohl and her expression even and stony.

Kali Prasad.


	5. part 5

**1983**

Kali Prasad makes no effort to conceal her distrust of you and Steve, and it’s evident the only thing keeping her from opening the car door and taking up your earlier threat to jump is Eleven sitting beside her in the backseat.

She interrogates Steve about the fragments of a plan he has and seems to be almost impressed with him for coming up with the idea to bring her in. She's not sure, but she thinks it could work if she and El have time to figure it all out.

Once she finds out that Steve is not just the high school jock he appears to be, but a time traveler, her hostility toward him softens, though not by much. She’s more intrigued than relaxed, her questioning shifting to him and where he’s been and what he’s seen. With the gift of precognition herself, you imagine it must be odd to be with someone who’s seen things, too.

“How do your powers work?” You ask, having spent twenty minutes of the drive gathering up the courage to do so; Kali doesn’t like, or trust, you. You’ve given her no reason to, and you know she comes from a different world than you, but it still pricks. “Are they like El’s?” You shift halfway in the passenger seat, turning your head to meet her eyes.

Her brows lift ever so slightly, and an amused, almost mischievous smile plays on her lips.

“They are different. Same source of power, just a different off-shoot. I can show people whatever I want them to see.”

“You make illusions,” you say.

“Illusions,” she says, “or not.”

Steve frowns, throwing a look over his shoulder, his brows furrowed; this is news to him.

"What do you mean, _not_?” He asks.

“I can create the visual shown, or I can take it from someone else.”

“Like, a memory or a dream or a…fantasy?” You ask. Kali nods, an almost admiring glint to her eyes, like she’s impressed with you for figuring it out.

“All of the above.”

Steve tightens his grip on the wheel, and Kali notices, inclining her head slightly, looking between the two of you.

“I can show you,” she says. She looks to you, cocking a brow. “What do you want to see?”

Your stomach churns, and you look anywhere but at Steve when you speak.

“Show me his-” You jerk a chin at Steve, who blanches. “-memories of me.”

“Wouldn’t you already have those?” She says, though her tone indicates she’s merely playing along; she knows there’s more to the story than she’s been told.

“Y/N,” Steve says through gritted teeth.

“It’s easier than you having to tell me, right?” You say. “It’s not like I’ll see anything I’m not already expecting.” It’s bait, but Steve doesn’t take it; it’s clear he wants to.

“Don’t do this,” he says, but he isn’t looking at Kali, he’s looking at you.

Guilt flares hot and sharp in your gut, but you shove it down, looking at Kali, nodding curtly.

“Show me. I want to see what he remembers from the first time around.”

“Please-” Steve says. Blood flashes as it trickles from Kali’s nostrils, and Steve’s voice, and the car you’re riding in, fall away, giving way to a different world; a world that belonged to a different you, to the same Steve.

_It is 1985, and you spend your days escaping the blistering summer heat inside the cool, air-conditioned mall, bickering with children at the scoops ahoy counter and stuffing yourself on shitty ice cream in the backroom with Robin and Steve._

_You teeter on the edge of something unnameable with Steve, something everyone can see, but no one will acknowledge. It's late, Robin gone for the day, the mall closed for the night, and you and Steve are locking up the store._

_Before you go, Steve pulls out a cone and plops a scoop of your favorite flavor on top, holding it out to you. You grin, taking it, and before Steve can react, you swipe a finger through the freezing sweetness and tap it on his nose, making him recoil._

_“Shouldn’t have done that,” Steve says, a wicked grin playing on his lips, as he snatches the cone out of your hand and tosses it into the sink, snaking his arms around you and catching you before you escape to grab it back, and he ducks his cold nose onto the back of your neck, making you squeal and squirm. You’ve not laughed this hard in a long time; perhaps, never._

_It’s Christmas of 1985, and you’re sitting next to Steve on the hood of his red Beemer, and his jaw is tense and tight._

_“What are you so afraid of?” You ask. He takes a deep breath, wringing his hands together, shaking his head before flicking a glance at you._

_“_ You _,” he says. “You’re gonna break my heart, and I can’t do a damn thing about it.”_

_“Who says you won’t break mine?”_

_“I don’t know, maybe-” He scoffs, rolling his eyes. “-history?”_

_“Drama queen,” you say. His brows pull thin, and you shift, drawing a leg up onto the hood, knee pressing into his thigh. The touch forces his gaze onto yours, his expression stony. You soften, letting a hand settle on his. “I’m not Nancy Wheeler. I know what I want, and I know how I feel.”_

_He drops his eyes, exhaling._

_“You have to trust me a little bit,” you say._

_Steve lifts his gaze to yours, and he flips his palm over, threading his fingers through yours._

_“I do,” he says, “trust you.”_

_It is the bridging of the gap between 85 and 86, and your friends - your family - stand around the room, all holding champagne or the virgin version of it, laughter and love so thick in the air you might choke on it._

_The clock runs out, midnight strikes, and before you can talk yourself out of it, you grab Steve by the back of the neck and pull him down to kiss you. He kisses you back, just like you knew he would._

_It is 1987, and though the state of Indiana is bordering on becoming a parallel universe's battleground, the last strings haven't snapped yet, and there are still more easy and normal days than there are cold and hard ones._

_Steve’s parents are gone. Left in the exodus of the week prior, when most of the town headed out, headed anywhere but Indiana. They tried to get him to come with - not all that hard - but he was 21, almost 22, and with an apartment and new family and friends of his own, he stayed._

_He chose you, and this place, even in its brokenness._

_His home is quiet, empty without his parents, though they never truly lived there in the first place. Soon, as soon as Dr. Owens and Mr. Clarke have figured out a home base for the plan they’ve become to come up with - a crazy, impossible plan - you and Steve will be leaving the Harrington house, the place you’ve held up in since your own family left a year ago._

_“You sure you want to do this?” Steve asks. You cock a brow, a shy smile on your lips._

_“You know you’ve asked me that, like, four times in the last ten minutes, right?”_

_“I just-” He pauses. “I don’t want you to…do something you regret.”_

_You step up to him, taking his face in your hands._

_“I could never regret you, Steve Harrington,” you say. He smiles, dipping his forehead against yours. When he kisses you, his touch is fierce, hungry. You give beneath his fingertips, letting the world and your clothing fall away._

_It is 1987, and you’re living full time in the warehouse with Steve, Robin, Nancy, Jonathan, Joyce, Dr. Owens, Scott Clarke, and the kids. You’re not sure what the place used to be, but now, it’s as close to home as anything else, even with its stone walls and cold concrete floors._

_The dining room/meeting room - technically just a large room that already had a big table in it and has been decorated to look less like a prison cell - is full tonight. Everyone is stuffed into various chairs around the table, eating dinner and listening to Dr. Owens. Mr. Clarke, and Dustin as they talk about the infamous machine. You don't understand quite how it works - or,_ will _work - but they seem enthusiastic and confident, and everyone is desperate for hope after all this time._

_“That still doesn’t answer the elephant in the room,” Steve says, leaning into the table._

_“_ Address _the elephant,” Robin corrects._

_“Same thing,” Steve retorts, a smile ghosting on his lips. Robin rolls her eyes, and Steve continues. “Say you_ do _get this thing to work. You’ve still gotta send someone back in it. So, who’s the unlucky sucker that hops in?”_

_"Anyone but Jane, Mr. Henderson, Scott, and I are eligible. Anyone not crucial to running the machine can go," Dr. Owens says._

_“Steve’s right,” Nancy says. “It’s a huge sacrifice.”_

_“I think huge is an understatement,” you say, to which Nancy smiles. Steve squeezes your hand where they’re joined in your lap, and he nods._

_“_ Fucking _huge?” Steve asks._

_“Still an understatement,” says Jonathan. Steve snorts._

_“And still nowhere closer to an answer,” says Dr. Owens._

_“You mean a sacrifice,” Mike says._

_“Perhaps we could refrain from referring to the potential savior of humanity as a sacrifice?”_

The memory twists as Steve struggles to pull it back, to slow Kali’s show, but just as quickly as you break free and hear his protests, you’re dragged back under. The snapshots roll on.

_It is 1988, and Steve is staring at the dark woods across the street from an old, now abandoned store. He is tense, the hair springing up on the back of his neck, his instincts warning him of what he can’t yet see._

_Your screams cracks open the sky and Steve’s chest, and by the time he turns, it’s too late._

_He is holding you in his arms, and you can feel the pain that courses through him like wildfire, destroying everything in its path, building and building and threatening to turn him to ash._

_It’s so big he can barely breathe, but he holds it inside, holds it close enough that you don’t see it in your last moments._

_He is holding you in his arms, and he is telling you it will be okay, though he knows it won't, knows it never will be again, and when you close your eyes, and the breath stops, he feels it like he's just died himself._

_It takes Nancy, Robin, and Jonathan to pull him away from you when the monsters return. Like an uncaged wild animal, like the very monsters they're running from, he screams, fights, and thrashes._

_In the end, Nancy punches him straight in the face, and in his shock, they manage to drag him off and away; away from you._

Steve’s resolve is strong, stronger than anyone expected, and he breaks through the memories long enough to plead, “Kali, _stop_ -”

_It has been a week since you died, and Steve stands at the end of the table, looking at his family, ignoring the empty chair no one can bear to move out yet._

_“I’m going,” he says. “I’m going in the machine.”_

_“Steve, we have to talk about this-” Joyce protests._

_"No," He half snarls the word, falling back into his sixteen-year-old self for a half-second. He shoves that part of himself away, composing himself before he speaks again, softer, more like himself. "You said it yourselves. For all of you, it's a huge sacrifice. You’re leaving things behind.” Steve swallows, pushing down the loss that threatens to choke him. “I’m not leaving anything that I can’t find again.”_

_“Steve, I know that Y/N’s-”_

_“Don’t,” he snaps. Robin pushes to her feet, coming to stand beside him, touching his arm. He meets her gaze, her expression earnest._

_“Are you sure about this, Harrington? This isn’t some…suicide mission?”_

_“No,” he says. He looks to Dr. Owens, shrugging a shoulder. “You need a savior of humanity, right? Well, here you go.”_

“ _Stop_!”

Steve rips the car onto the side of the road, wheels spinning over gravel, and he slams it into park, punching off his seatbelt and pushing open the door, practically throwing himself out of the car. The abruptness of the movements breaks Kali's control, cuts the film rolling in your head, and leaves the vehicle in a sudden and shocked silence.

No one moves, or speaks, or even breathes. Steve grips the hood outside the car, head ducked, as he sucks in deep breath after deep breath, his shoulders hunched and trembling.

You don't have the words to describe what you've seen, or what you feel, and you can't seem to do anything but sit there like a damn statue, useless and silent and churning with thoughts and memories and feelings that are yours but aren't, at the same time.

El is smart enough to know not to talk, and Kali, content with the little chaos she's created, is quiet.

“Thank you,” you tell Kali.

"Everyone deserves to know their truth," she says and falls quiet again.

When Steve gets back in the car, he’s all tense shoulders and clenched fists, and he doesn’t say a word the rest of the drive home. It’s the most awkward two hours of your life, and when he pulls back into his driveway, you’re so grateful you could cry.

El and Kali, once again perceptive, are out of the car in seconds, El leading her into the house.

You climb out once the front door of the house has shut behind them, and just as your door shuts, Steve's opens. Frustration coils and snaps in your gut, and you whirl to face him just he straightens and nudges his door closed.

“Okay,” he says, “So I know that looked bad, but-”

You throw your hands up, shaking your head. “Please, tell me how you’re going to lie your way out of this one.” His lips part, and you continue. “I knew I was dead. Or, that I died, in the future. Barbara told me.”

He winces, eyes fluttering shut.

“Why didn’t _you_?” You say. He opens his eyes, shoulders sinking, and he shakes his head, as if he’s conceding something.

“I know I fucked up, and I shouldn’t have lied, but when you asked me what happened to us…” He shrugs a shoulder. “I guess I wanted to pretend that it really did go that way. That we really were happy the whole time.”

“But it wasn’t real, Steve,” you say. “It was a fairytale.”

“Not,” he says, “All of it.” He licks his lips, gaze flitting around your face. “You saw the highlights. You know, now, what it was like. Why I did what I did.”

“That’s the thing, Steve,” you say, exasperation clouding your tone, “I _don’t_ know. I don’t understand why you would….would volunteer for something like this, with no way of knowing if you’d even survive the machine turning on, all because I-” You hesitate. “-because I was gone.”

"Don't you?" He asks—his brows furrow. "I didn't come back here just to… _save the world_ , or whatever. I came back because I wasn’t _strong_ enough to live in a world without you in it." He shrugs. "I was a coward, like I always am, so I ran as far away from that place as possible." 

The last strings of hostility you’ve harbored toward him snap, and all you can feel is empathy, and sadness, and a longing you don’t have a name for, all for this boy who is nothing like you thought he was.

You come around the car, and Steve freezes, not even seeming to breathe as you step closer. His brows furrow, confusion in his eyes, but he still doesn't move.

“You’re not a coward. You’re a _hero_.”

He scoffs in disbelief, looking away, but you reach up, a hand touching his cheek and guiding his eyes back to yours. He’s putty beneath your fingers, not putting up a moment of fight.

“I’m _not_ a hero,” he says coldly.

“No? Because I saw the same thing you did. I saw you lose everything and everyone, and keep fighting.” You shrug. “And that was then. Here, you saved Barbara Holland’s life. You took El in, even though having her here puts you in danger. Now, you’ve got Kali, too. You’re basically leading this charge, and you still think you’re that guy that-” You shake your head. “- _ruled_ the school, but you’re not him. I thought you were, but you’re _not_. You're the hero of this story, and you always have been. It's been a few days, and I can see it. Why can't you?"

Steve frowns, surprise flashing in his eyes, and you see the moment he decides to kiss you, just before he moves. It’s slow, leaving room for you to say no, to pull away, but you don’t. You stay where you are, and you let him press his lips to yours, and you kiss him back.

You’re not sure which you is kissing him back, if it’s this one or the one from the memories, but you don’t care enough to decipher it. All you care about is how soft his lips are and how gentle his touch is, even in its fierce intensity. His hands skim up your sides and down your arms, and his tongue flicks against your teeth, and you can feel the slamming of his heartbeat against his chest beneath your hands.

Your hands climb to his hair, curling into the strands and tugging him closer, and the noise that rises from the back of his throat makes your stomach twist, makes you press closer.

He ends it first, pulling back with blown eyes and swollen lips, his breath coming in huffs. You’re just as breathless, and for a moment, you stand in each other’s arms, motionless.

Steve moves, stepping back, blinking the glaze out of his eyes and clearing his throat, the lips you just kissed parting, a white plume of air crystallizing his breath.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I shouldn’t have-”

“It’s okay.” You wish you could say more, tell him it was more than okay, that you’re just…you don’t know what you are. Good and confused and messy and knotted and in need of a slap to the face to clear your thoughts. You’re trying not to say the wrong thing, but you don’t realize that the attempt comes off as cold instead.

Steve palms the back of his neck and swallows, Adam's apple bobbing.

“Thank you,” he says, “for coming with us. And I’m sorry for…” He sighs deeply, averting his gaze. “Everything.”

“Steve…” You trail off, words too far out of reach.

He gives you a thin-lipped smile and says, "Goodnight, Y/N."

He heads up the drive before you get a chance to reply, disappearing into the house and behind the closed door, leaving your goodbye and everything else you didn’t get a chance to say hanging on your lips.


	6. part 6

**1983**

Seeing as it’s the first time everyone - _literally_ everyone, only excluding Will still trapped in the Upside Down - is in the same room together, and only Steve, you, and Barb believe Steve’s words to be true, using the word _chaotic_ as a description would be an understatement.

Joyce and Hopper are overtly focused on El and Kali - two telepathic and homeless teens - and the girls stand in one corner, Kali resembling a live wire, taut and electric, her glare a threat.

Mike, Lucas, and Dustin are near them, and though Mike would like to be closer, Kali's invisible wall bars him from stepping nearer.

In another corner, Barb sits with Nancy and Jonathan, neither seeming all that thrilled to be here, and the other occupies you and Robin. Robin, who was Steve’s best friend in the entire world, apart from you; Robin, who is even less interested in being anywhere near him.

Somehow, miraculously, you convinced her to come, and you’ve managed to convince her to stay. Steve has no clue what you told her, and it’s not as if you two are on speaking terms right now, so he can’t exactly _ask_.

“Six people have gone missing this week,” Hopper says once everyone is gathered around Steve’s large living room, all perched on couches or chair arms or on the floor and leaning against them. Hopper, of course, paces in front of the fireplace.

“Six?” Steve frowns, leaning forward, brows knitting together.

"Six," Hopper says. His expression is tight and tense, the concern he tries to hide evident in the lines on his face. "Not only that, but half the crops town died overnight. And, contrary to Merrill and Eugene's bitching, it _wasn’t_ poison.”

“The tunnels,” Steve says. All eyes snap to him, and he ignores the rush of discomfort the attention brings. Once upon a time, he thrived beneath it. He clears his throat and continues. “In 1984, there were these…tunnels that spread from the lab. Took over half the town.”

“But it’s 1983,” Robin says pointedly.

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock,” he says, and when she stiffens, he feels like he’s been stabbed in the gut. What would have been a teasing remark before was an attack, at least in Robin’s eyes, and Steve didn’t realize it until the words left his lips. He tears his gaze from Robin’s.

“What does that mean, then?” Joyce asks. “What about Will?”

Steve's stomach twists, and he says, "He's a smart kid, Ms. Byers. If anyone can survive in there, it's Will."

She purses her lips, only slightly soothed by the assurance; Steve knows the only true cure is her son, back in her arms, and he plans on making that happen.

He can’t let Hawkins lose anyone else; they’ve lost far, far too many.

“We have to get him out of there,” Mike says.

“We will,” Steve says. “We _are_.”

“Oh, Harrington has a plan?” Robin asks.

He huffs a laugh, ignoring the quip and looking around at the others.

“Actually,” he says, “I do.”

* * *

When Steve Harrington and his group of survivors came up with the possibly impossible, certifiably insane plan to jump back in time, the goal was to beat the game before it began. The goal was to get a leg up; to outwit the Upside Down before it even realized it was losing at its own game.

Hindsight was supposed to be the advantage; it was supposed to be the weapon they used to knock the Upside Down off the board.

Instead, the Upside Down caught onto the play. It is throwing its plans into motion far before they were ever supposed to begin; it’s throwing them all into the fire at the same time.

The first time around, they may not have beat their enemy, but they managed to subdue it long enough to keep it from destroying everything. Hawkins may be dead, and Indiana may be dying, but the rest of the world still chugged on. They weren’t the best there was to offer, but they were enough. They were a bandaid on a bullet wound that kept just enough pressure to avoid bleeding out, and no more.

At least then, everyone knew what they were dealing with; by 1989, even Scott Clarke was wicked with a shotgun. They weren’t the A team, but they did the job.

Now, Steve is the only person who was there, the only person who saw it. El and Kali know what they’ve lived through, and you know what you’ve been shown, but the rest of them are going off the fragments they’ve been given. They aren’t the hardened soldiers Steve left behind.

When he first landed back here, he had the advantage, and he used it. Now, that advantage is gone, and Steve and his group of non-friends are all that is left.

They don’t know each other, haven’t fought and lost together, but they are the only option.

* * *

Steve's plan isn't even simple in theory, as much as he'd like it to be. Each aspect, each forking of the path, each journey taken, is risky, and no one is guaranteed survival or a happy ending. He let go of that concept a long time ago, but these people are new to the fight.

Still, his is the only plan they’ve got, and they don’t have the time to come up with a new one; even if 75% of the room neither likes nor trusts him. As much as they are all he’s got, he’s all they have, too.

Tomorrow, Hopper and Joyce will venture to the lab with Kali, El, Nancy, and Jonathan. When they get there, however, Hopper and Joyce will descend through the gate after Will, the others will hold their line, and when - Steve refuses to say if - they return, El and Kali will use their gifts to slam the door on the Upside Down so hard the foundation shatters and the doorway dissolves.

Steve, Robin, Barbara, and you will go to Brimborn with all the explosives that can fit in the back of Steve’s Beemer. If the Demogorgon is snatching people and the tunnels are cutting through Hawkins, it can’t be long before the Mind Flayer begins it’s destruction, too, if it hasn’t already.

He isn’t naive enough to believe that card won’t be played; not when it caused so much carnage the first time around. The Mind Flayer will rear its head, and Steve knows it like he knows the sky is blue or he loves you.

You, who still won’t talk to him, who will barely even look at him. Perfect timing for such tension.

“How do we even know this will work?” Mike asks. “That El and Kali even can close the gate, or that the Mind Flayer and the tunnels can even be stopped?”

“We don’t know,” Steve says.

Mike scoffs and says, “Great plan, Harrington. Well done.”

"You got a better one?" Steve retorts. "Because from where I'm sitting, you know jack-shit, and you can do even less." Mike turns his nose up, and Steve skates a gaze along the others; the others who can barely meet his eye for one reason or another. "I'm not asking you to like me. I'm asking you to trust me." Steve shrugs. "And if I'm wrong, either you tell me off, or we're all dead anyway, and it doesn't matter."

“Jesus, Steve,” Nancy says.

“Steve’s right,” you say, in a surprising stand up for Steve that he doesn’t expect. “He’s the only one who really knows what we’re up against.”

“How do we know this isn’t some big joke?” Jonathan asks. “That you’re not just screwing with us?”

"He's not," you and Barb say at the same time. Your cheeks flush, and Barb continues. "He saved my life. He wouldn't have known-" She flicks a glance at him. "-what he did if he hadn't been through all this before."

“I’ve seen it,” you volunteer. Steve’s gaze snaps to you, but you don’t meet his. “I’ve seen his memories.” You press your lips together, catching his eyes for the briefest of seconds before looking away. “Plus, this is clearly _not_ the Steve Harrington we know. He’s, like, ten times _less_ infuriating.”

Steve can’t help the smile that tugs on his lips or the twisting in his gut.

“It’d be a pretty long con,” he says. You finally meet his gaze, one side of your mouth twitching up. You look to the others, expression serious.

“Wait, how have you _seen_ his memories?" Dustin asks. Your cheeks flush, and you look to Kali, who has been silent beside El in the corner, both observing. 

“Kali showed me,” you say.

“Round two?” She asks.

“ _No_ ," you and Steve say simultaneously, both your cheeks hot and red. Nancy looks between Steve and you, but Steve ignores her questioning gaze; the last thing he wants to deal with is an interrogation from Nancy Wheeler.

“Whether or not we can do this doesn’t matter,” Joyce says. “Will is still in there. We have to _try_.”

Hopper's lips pull thin, and he sweeps a look around the room, eyes lingering on Steve.

“And we will,” he says.

* * *

“Where the hell did you get all of this?” Robin asks, standing behind Steve’s car, staring wide-eyed at the trunk full of C-4 that Steve not-so-legally took from the police station the day prior under the facade of checking up with Hopper once more before the night’s events. Barb and you rush to the back of the car to see, and you find Steve’s eyes, cocking a brow.

“You don’t want to know,” he says, tugging his door open and climbing into the driver’s seat.

“Yeah, actually, I think I do,” Robin says.

“Me too,” Barb says.

“Me three,” you say.

“Sorry, can’t hear you,” Steve says, pulling his door shut. He hears the three of you’s muffled protest through the glass before you split off, Barb and Robin taking the backseat and you taking the front.

“You know if we get caught, we go to prison, for like, ever, right?” Robin asks.

“We’ve got bigger things to worry about than prison,” he says. He catches her frown in the rearview mirror. “We’re not gonna get caught.”

“You don’t technically know that,” Barb says. “You haven’t done this before. No one has.”

Steve frowns, turning the key in the ignition and letting his fingers curl around the steering wheel.

"Thanks for the reminder," he says. "Really helpful."

"Here to help," Barb quips. You hide a laugh behind your hand, and Steve's stomach twists.

He wishes briefly that the car was empty, that he had a moment with you behind the glass to ask why you won’t talk to him, why you won’t look at him.

He misses being looked at by you - being seen by you - even if you do not see the same thing you used to; even if you don't look at him the same way.

* * *

The sky above Brimborn churns with an unnatural red glow, and when the four of you step out of the car, the air turns sour, the _wrongness_ of the place settling in all of your bones.

“This is real, isn’t it?” Robin asks. “Everything you said. You weren’t screwing around.”

“Wish I was,” Steve says, going around to the trunk and popping it. He pulls out his bat - another version the original bat, seeing as he couldn’t take Nancy’s - and slings it up onto his shoulder. “Grab a weapon.” He jerks a chin at the backseat at your frown. “Floorboards. Should be-” Robin tugs open the door and bends down, pulling out three weapons. “-yeah, two shotguns and a pistol.”

“Why the fuck do you have two shotguns in your car?” Robin asks.

“Don’t forget the pistol and the-” You wave a hand at his bat. “-creepy Michael Myers bat.”

“Michael Myers had a knife,” Steve says pointedly. “And I’d say _you’ll see_ , but I hope you don’t.”

“You always this damn dramatic?” Robin asks.

“From what I can tell,” you say, “Yes.”

Steve rolls his eyes and tugs out a few explosives' cartons, holding them carefully, though he knows they can't go off unless someone sets them off; he did his research - a full hour of it - before sneaking into the evidence locker.

“Robin and Barbara, you two line these up on the far corners. Y/N and I will take the front. We meet back here in five minutes, and we go down to set the rest together. That’s the plan. Got it?”

“Aye aye, sir,” Robin says. Steve narrows his eyes, and she takes a breath, nodding her head. “Yeah. Got it.”

* * *

Barb and Robin head to set the charges at the warehouse's back, leaving you and Steve in an uncomfortable silence that only grows more tense by the minute. He both hates and loves that they had to split off, and that he paired with you without a second thought; that it forces you into the place for the conversation Steve has been trying to have.

He isn’t really sure what _exactly_ that conversation is, or what he wants - _needs_ \- to say, but he has to say something; this silence is drowning him.

He kneels at the front corner of Brimborn, you standing behind him to keep an eye out - you asked _for what_ , and Steve said, _trust me, you’ll know it if you see it._ Once he's carefully set the charges, he straightens, looking at the back of your head for a long moment before he speaks. 

“Are we not going to talk about it?”

You purse your lips, quiet for so long Steve thinks you’re not going to respond at all, finally turning to face him.

“Is not talking about it an option?” You ask.

Steve exhales sharply, unable to hide the hurt on his face. Guilt flickers on yours and Steve’s chest aches with that familiar longing. Like Atlas and the world and his shoulders, but instead, it’s Steve and you and the space between.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you back.”

“Why _did_ _you_ kiss me back?" He asks. At your frown, he gathers his courage and presses on. "Look, neither of us knows what's gonna happen in there. And I don't want-" He pauses, raking a hand through his hair. "If something happens, I don't want _that_ to be our last moment. I don’t want that to be what we remember.”

“Better than the last one before you came, isn’t it?”

The pain of your loss - of your blain staining his hands and your life flowing out before his eyes - strikes him like a viper, and he flinches like he's been hit. Remorse plays on your features again.

“I’m sorry-I didn’t mean-”

“Yeah, you did,” he says. He sighs. “I guess I deserve that one, though.” His eyes find yours, and though your gaze is piercing, he holds it. “Can you blame me, though? For wanting to pretend?”

“No,” you say, “but I _can_ blame you for lying.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says. “I’ll tell you a thousand times, because I _am_. I’m so, _so_ sorry.”

“Sorry for lying, or sorry you got caught?”

Steve shakes his head and says, “Just… _sorry_. For all of it. For everything.” He feels like a broken record spitting out the same old tune, but he can’t bear the thought of going in there and chancing an ending with no resolution; he’s already lost you once, and he can’t do it again, not like that.

“For the record, I’m sorry, too,” you say. Steve frowns and inclines his head.

“For what?”

Your expression falls, the sadness in your eyes so thick Steve is choking on it two feet away. You reach a hand up, touching his cheek for the quickest of seconds.

“You lost everything. And I don’t think anyone’s taken the time to tell you that they were sorry that happened to you.” You swallow. “And if something _does_ happen in there, you should know that someone…someone is _grateful_ for what you did. _I’m_ grateful.” A tiny smile pulls on your lips. “I’m not saying I forgive you, but…I kinda get it, now. I get why you’re here, and what you’re trying to do, and I think if anyone can pull this off, it’s you.”

Steve’s lips part, but your words have shocked him into silence, and his mouth gapes. You avert your gaze, continuing on.

“You’re a good person, Steve Harrington, even if you get in your own way, sometimes. And even if this all goes to shit, you gave up everything you had to try and fix it, and that’s what matters. So, thank you. Even if it wasn’t all for me, _thank_ _you_.”

A smile ghosts your lips for a moment, then you’re turning back toward the car, heading to meet back up with Barb and Robin, and Steve is stuck, still speechless.

The battle hasn’t even begun, and Steve is already on his knees. He takes a breath, tries to regain some semblance of composure, and follows you.

If he's lucky - and he means really, really goddamn lucky - there will be more time to deal with whatever it is between you. For now, though, Steve has a big ass monster to kill.


	7. part 7

**1983**

  
Kali comes in handy far more than anyone anticipated.

Whereas everyone else going to the lab - Hopper, Joyce, Nancy, Jonathan - expect a battle with the guards from the doors to the gate, Kali paves the way with illusions, taking each person they pass out of commission and moving them silently and essentially invisible down the halls.

It is the easy part, getting in. It is what comes next that is hard.

Hopper and Joyce suit up, and even Joyce tucks a gun into her belt, though she clearly has no intention of using it. They hook themselves to the cables, and tug on their helmets, and prepare to delve into the underworld. Or whatever the Upside Down truly is; underworld feels a valid description.

"Wait till we're back to close that gate, yeah?" Hopper says. El looks to Kali, and though she doesn't know how it's possible, Kali pushes a thought into her mind, an understanding coming with it.

The moment the charges blow at the warehouse, the timer starts. We close it when we have to.

El also, somehow, understands that this is information Hopper doesn’t need to have. If he thinks there’s a chance they won’t make it back, he won’t send Joyce in at all. And if he doesn’t send Joyce in, their chances of getting Will back diminish.

She will save as many as she can, but if it comes down to it, and there is a choice to be made, she knows that Kali will make it for them - that she likely already has. And El, as much as she doesn’t want to admit it, knows she’s right.

A week ago, she might have believed differently. Then, Kali showed her the memories Steve shared with her. El saw the world burn.

She can’t let that happen again.

* * *

Steve stands a few yards back from the rusting door of Brimborn Steelworks, Barb, Robin, and you close behind him. Only Steve has his weapon out, gripped tightly in one hand, but the three of you are on the defensive, watching for whatever Steve knows is coming.

“How do we know there’s not some big monster waiting for us down in the basement?” Robin asks. “Not that I believe your ridiculous story, but-”

"We don't," Steve says. He flicks a glance over his shoulder. "If Hopper's right and the tunnels just started, we might get lucky."

“Might,” Barb says bitterly, like the word is sour on her tongue.

“Yeah, the Upside Down doesn’t really do predictability.” Steve hears you snort a laugh, and ignores the flutter in his chest. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Robin says.

“Me neither,” you say. “I mean, him talking _you_ into this.”

Robin laughs humorlessly, and Steve can’t help but smile. He shrugs, pulling one strap of his backpack off his shoulder and swinging it to the front, tugging open the zipper to reveal a few squares labeled with warnings. The wiring screams _explosive_ , if the description wasn't already enough to mark it as dangerous.

“So, how exactly do we set these off?” You ask. Steve flashes you a grin and pulls a small remote with a button out of his pocket, waving it before tucking it away again.

“Not bad for a jock, yeah?” He asks. You roll your eyes, and Robin huffs and waves a hand dismissively.

“Only _incredibly_ illegal.”

“You get used to it,” Steve says.

“Great,” Robin says flatly.

“Are we doing this?” You ask. “It’s probably not the best idea to linger at the place you’re about to blow up.”

Barb pipes her agreement, and Steve nods as he zips the backpack up again, pulling it over his shoulders and gripping the handle of his bat in his hand.

"We get in, and we get out," Steve says. "If that thing is in there, and you get grabbed by it…" He swallows the knot in his throat. "It's over."

“That’s _very_ reassuring,” Barbara says. “But noted.”

Steve takes a deep breath, ignoring all the memories flickering in warning behind his eyes. He reminds himself that the world he left is gone, that this place is a clean slate and that all the red on his ledger - on all of the books - was erased the moment he jumped back. This world is dangerous, but he lived in the other for so long that 1983 is a cakewalk in many ways; regarding monsters, at the very least.

This, he can do. Set the charges with you, Robin, and Barbara watching his back. Get the hell back, press the button, and obliterate any simmering embers of the Mind Flayer and the carnage it can wreak.

He reaches out, tugs open the creaking door, and steps into the darkness.

* * *

Though the warehouse appears abandoned and empty, and the slow venture through the darkness to the stairs descending into the basement gives you no reason to believe otherwise, you can’t shake the feeling that something is _wrong_.

It’s as if you’re being watched, but the eyes are just hidden enough that your brain doesn’t register it, merely funneling the discomfort into nerves that slither inside you and wrap around your bones, leaving you stiff and uneasy.

Only Steve had a weapon out when you first entered, but by the time you step onto the stairs after him, Barb and Robin on your tail, all three of you have weapons in your hands; Robin with a shotgun she looks far too comfortable holding and Barbara with a pistol.

The other shotgun rests in your hands, and though it shouldn’t be possibly - it _isn’t_ possible - you feel as if you’ve held one before, like there’s muscle memory buried somewhere deep inside you.

Just as you know how to hold - and likely use - the weapon, you know that something is _off_ ; something in the air, maybe, or something in you - remnants of the old or future you - sending a warning.

The basement's lighting is even poorer than that upstairs, and there's a coldness to the air that pushes deep inside you. The very atmosphere of the place is icy, non-living, unsettling.

Still, there is no choice but to make it to the center of the wet and sticky floor, you, Robin, and Barb watching the darkness for shadows. Steve kneels down in the center of the unofficial triangle, tugging open the backpack and setting the explosives in a pile, tossing the bag to the side once he’s finished.

“I’ve got a bad feeling,” Robin says softly.

“I don’t like this,” Barb says. “It feels…off.”

Steve straightens, and his gaze finds yours, a flicker of relief when he locates you, and you're surprised at the twist in your gut, at the urge to smile.

“Yeah, let’s get the hell out of here.”

He reaches to pick up his bat, fingers curling around the handle, but the moment his fingers brush the wood, the single cracking light hanging overhead dies out and bathes the room in darkness. Steve yells, and the floor shakes, and a growl that pierces your very core reverberates through the room.

The guns go up, and the safeties flick off, but with no light and nothing to aim at, you're trapped in the dark, listening to Steve struggle and scrambling blindly across the floor after him.

The light comes up in time for you to watch a creature the size of a cow, it's surface slick muscle that drips blood and goo, drop Steve onto the concrete, his bat rolling out of his hand and out of reach. Even if he could grab it, his eyes are shut before he makes impact, and he lays limp and motionless as the creature turns to you.

The fear that slams into your chest is so massive that it nearly buckles your knees, but the sight of a slumped Steve in your periphery keeps an edge on the fear and keeps it wrangled inside.

Barb and Robin, however, are not in the same boat. Robin is frozen, her gun aimed at the creature, but her gaze too focused; almost far away, or too close to be of use. Barb is shaking, trembling, and tears gleam in her eyes.

The creature is the size of a car, and surely stronger, but it has Steve. It has _your_ Steve. And even if he wasn’t Steve, if he was just some random, he has the remote in his pocket. He holds the keys to ending this.

“Cover me!” You scream, cocking your gun and pulling the trigger, ignoring the painful kickback in your shoulder and planting your feet as it fires, the creature howling in anger. You chuck the gun aside, and Robin and Barb’s protests reach your eyes.

“— we have to go!” Robin yells, her anxiety dripping from her words.

"Not yet!" You lunge for the bat a few yards away, fingers scrabbling for the handle and closing around it. The monster bellows, swiping a sharp tentacle-like arm at you, and you barely miss being slashed in the side, ducking as Robin recovers her composure and fires a shot that catches the creature in the leg. Its rage gives you the time to lift the bat and scramble for Steve, ignoring your knees' protest as you push across the concrete, reaching out for him when you reach him and dragging him up.

He's dead-weight like this, too heavy to carry yourself, and you let out a cry of frustration before straightening. Robin and Barb are firing at the mind flayer, their shots slowing its progress, but not by much.

There will be no one to save Steve Harrington if you don’t do it yourself. Barb and Robin are covering you, but none of you are soldiers; your familiarity with the weapons doesn’t go far enough for a real and lasting fight.

As much as fear may be debilitating, it can make you superhuman, too. It tunnels your vision and slows time and brings the world into stunning detail, gives you impeccable focus.

If Steve doesn’t make it out of here, the plan fails. The Mind Flayer survives. Hawkins, Indiana, and the world burn. Barbara and Robin die here; your newfound allies die at the lab.

This is one integral piece of the puzzle; the Mind Flayer cannot rise. No matter the cost.

You jam your hand into Steve’s pocket, fingers curling around the remote, and you tug it back and put it in your own jacket pocket, pushing to your feet and finding Robin and Barbara, who have ditched shooting in favor of physicality; Robin is swinging the shotgun like a bat, catching the Mind Flayer in the mouth, and Barb has found a metal pipe that she’s slamming onto its back.

You rescind your prior statement: they _are_ soldiers. Untrained but passionate, a little reckless but brave. And their stories will not end here.

“Robin!” You call, catching both their gazes for a beat. “You have to get Steve out! Get him to the car, and I’ll cover you both!”

“Not a chance!” Robin snaps.

“We’re not leaving you!” Barbara says. Your chest twists painfully with affection for the girls - so recently strangers or mere acquaintances - that stand on the battlefield with you, a team borne out of necessity.

“I’ll meet you outside,” you yell, bolting and ducking for your gun again, checking it’s loaded and cocking it. You fire at the Mind Flayer, drawing its attention to you - away from Robin, Barbara, and Steve. Your gaze snaps to theirs, and your tone leaves no room for discussion. “Go. _Now_!”

To your infinite relief, they do. Their indecision and disapproval is written on their faces, but they do as asked, running for Steve, gathering him carefully - though awkwardly - in their arms and heading for the stairs as quickly as possible.

You keep the Mind Flayer’s focus and anger on you, firing shot after shot until Robin and Barb have disappeared through the doorway at the top of the stairs and ditching the gun when the ammo runs dry, collecting the blood-stained bat from the floor and gasping for breath.

You feel a moment’s longing for the old - or, future - you; they, at least, had more training, and surely a bit more stamina after all those years.

 _I need your help_ , you think, not expecting the thought to go anywhere but sending it deep into yourself, _or Steve and the town die with me._ There may be no remnants of that person inside you if time is a straight line the way everyone expects. That person might have ceased to exist the moment you died in the future or Steve jumped back. But if there’s a chance they’re still in there, that you don’t have to die here, you have to take it.

The shift is infinitesimal, but an awareness settles upon you, a familiarity to the stance and your grip on the bat.

You have been here before; you’ve done this before. Or, you haven’t, but part of you has, something _in_ you has.

A voice that isn’t quite a voice, but almost a feeling, slithers through your thoughts.

 _The mouth_ it reminds you. _The mouth will give you time._ If the thoughts weren’t yours, you wouldn’t have understood them, but the _knowing_ moves down your spine, straightening your stance and lifting the bat.

Your hands are only halfway yours - this yours - when they swing, and though it is rough, the strength behind the blow cracks the Mind Flayer just as it opens its maws to screech and knocks it backward. Pieces of bone and blood splatter with sickening _squelch_ noises as they tear from its form, but you don’t take the time for more of a mental picture. You turn and run like hell, scrambling across the bloody, grimy floor and up the metal stairs, throwing yourself through the doorway and slamming the metal door shut behind you.

The remote is in your hand the moment the door is closed, and you give yourself three seconds of a head start through the warehouse before your thumb finds the button and presses down.

The heat reaches you first, just as you push through the front door, but the blast knocks you forward into the dirt, plucking the breath straight from your lungs. Your ears ring so loud you think the drums might burst, and you taste ash and blood on your tongue.

The next moments come in flashes. Hands on your back - Robin and Barb - hauling you to your feet. Your heartbeat an orchestral performance slamming against your skull. The sky, dark and ashy and licked with flames. The backseat of the car, and an unconscious Steve Harrington; unconscious, but alive. The soft, quiet voice in your head murmuring: _you did good, kid. now do better and bring him back to us._

Brimborn Steelworks burns, and the Mind Flayer is trapped below, unkillable with the gate open, but incapacitated nonetheless.

* * *

By the time a shell-shocked and white-knuckled Robin pulls into the ever-empty Harrington driveway, your ears have stopped ringing, but your entire body aches like it slammed into a brick wall. It wasn’t a wall, nor was it brick, but the analogy is close enough.

Steve is still passed out in the back seat beside you, but at your prompting, Robin pulled over a few minutes into the ride to bind his hands and feet. His words in the car, and his brief tales of the Flayed - of Billy Hargrove - have your stomach in knots, have fear curdling and growing inside your chest.

If what he said is true, if he is…. _possessed_ by the Mind Flayer, what can you of all people do to help him?

The old you, or whatever the hell the voice in your head was, told you to bring him back, but they didn’t tell you _how_. You’ve never been more aware of the differences between you and the future you until now, when you’re desperate for the abilities and knowledge you had in another world, things you know of but can’t reach.

But you, this you, is all there is. You are all Steve Harrington has, and it will have to be enough.

* * *

Black ink curls up Steve’s skin like hair in the water, flowing and curling and disappearing beneath fabric. He’s still unconscious, and he’s bound tightly where he sits in the corner, face even and calm despite the vines tracing along the surface.

“If Steve’s right,” Robin says, “what’s the point of keeping him tied up here?”

"She has a point," Barb says hesitantly. She steps forward, and you don't miss the flash of the gun she has tucked in her pocket. "Isn't he just suffering this way? Maybe we should let him go-"

“Come near us,” you say, turning to face her, putting your body between them and Steve, lunging to grab his bat from where it was tossed on the ground, “And one of these nails will end up lodged in your forehead.”

The threat comes from deep inside you, maybe not even from you - not this you, but the other one that Steve left behind - and strikes hard. It carries a surprising fire behind it, one you didn't know you had.

You’d burn your way through this town to keep him safe, and it is a terrifying thought for its intensity. It’s a truth that has settled deep inside you without your knowledge.

Something, whether it be time or some other force, has you tethered to him.

Regret flashes hot in your gut, and you lower the bat.

"I'm-I'm so sorry. I didn't-" You shake your head, pinching the bridge of your nose. "Look, I know it's impossible, and that he's probably long gone, but…I can't give up on him yet."

Barbara says your name softly, but you ignore it, looking between them.

“You two take one of the walkies and get to the lab. They probably need all the help they can get. I’ll stay here, and…I don’t know, do something.”

“Are you sure?” Robin asks, though both seem to be aware that there will be no dragging you from this spot.

“I’m sure,” you say. “Now go. I better see both your faces tomorrow morning.”

Robin smiles lightly, and Barb nods.

“Same to you,” she says. “It’d be pretty cliche of us to die twice, right?”

You snort a laugh, surprising yourself, and step forward, pulling them both into a hug. They stiffen for a beat, but both wrap their arms around you, and for a long moment, you stand there, the unfortunate and unwilling forces that have fallen too deep into the mess not to see it through.

You send up a wish that both Robin and Barbara make it out of this alive; when it all ends, you think you could be good friends; _if_ it all ends.

* * *

“You really know how to treat a guy,” a cold voice muses from the corner, making you jump where you sit on the armchair of the couch, staring at the walkie talkie and willing it to make noise, to tell you how much time you have left; if you have any time left.

When the gate closes, Steve dies if he isn’t free.

You push to your feet and cross the living room to sit on the small ottoman you’ve tugged to rest a few feet away from him - out of reach.

“Morning, princess,” you say. His lip curls up, and he slides a lazy glance around the room before fixing a glare on you.

“What is this?”

“An intervention,” you say, only half kidding. He snorts a laugh, the sound so unlike Steve it makes your stomach twist, but you don’t let anything show in your expression.

He tips his head back against the wall, a sick smile playing on his lips.

“You want to know why I didn’t tell you the truth? The real reason?” He asks.

“Considering you’re possessed by a demon, not particularly,” you say. He snorts, rolling his eyes.

“Because I was finally free.”

You push down the hurt flaring in your chest and force a snide smile onto your lips.

“This oughta be good.”

“Free from _you_ ,” he says. “All those years, stuck with you. But I came back here, and I got a fresh start. I mean, who wouldn’t want that? Can’t have a crazy ex if they can’t remember you.”

“You know, even possessed, you’re a pretty terrible liar, Steve,” you say. You lean forward, forearms on your knees. “I don’t even have to remember everything to know it.”

“Or you’re delusional.”

“Once again, says Mr. Possession.”

He exhales slowly, shrugging a shoulder.

“You won’t be so smug when I rip the smile off your lips.”

“You forget, I know you,” you say. “And I’m _not_ letting you go without a fight.”

“Good luck with that.”

“This isn’t how it ends,” you say, folding your arms and fixing him with a determined expression. “Not after everything we’ve been through. It’s not happening.”

Steve narrows his eyes, lip curling up in a sneer.

“I guess we’ll see, won’t we,” he says. You give a humorless smile, and the intensity of your expression seems to make him falter, though he tries to hide it; it seems, somehow, you know Steve Harrington better than you thought.

You have the advantage. And if you have anything to do with it, Steve Harrington’s story will not end here, with a parasite crawling in his veins and pulling him away from you.

One last time. One last fight. Not the fight you expected, but the most important one. You shouldn’t be surprised the real battle was always Steve.

“Yeah,” you say, “I guess we will.”


End file.
